The Cleveland Cavaliers have a rich owner.
Sure, every NBA owner has to be "rich" by normal people standards to own a team, but there are massive differences in the bank accounts and net worth and liquid assets of the various governors of NBA teams. The Buss family owns the Lakers but don't have another massive source of income. On the other end of the spectrum (and the city), Clippers owner Steve Ballmer makes more money in a minute than most people do in a year.
Dan Gilbert is near the upper-end of that spectrum, as the Cavaliers' owner has a net worth measured in the tens of billions. He is the majority owner of Rocket Mortgage and the founder of Rock Ventures. The day-to-day operating costs of the Cleveland Cavaliers are not putting a strain on his bank account.
As the NBA Trade Deadline marches ever closer, that detail will come to bear in a significant way. The Cleveland Cavaliers are having a season for the ages, 31-4 across their first 35 games and currently riding a ten-game winning streak where every single win is by 10 points or more. One more and they'll set the NBA record.
They are a team without a lot of needs, but the approach of a team that is so clearly a title contender should be to maximize their chances at winning it all. That doesn't mean making foolhardy win-now trades, but it does mean using their assets to make the team better, this year for certain and also long-term.
The Cavaliers need to prioritize winning, not savings
Unfortunately for many teams in the league, their approach to the Trade Deadline is different. Some teams spend what it takes to field a competitive team. Other teams, usually because of mandates from owners, use their assets to ensure their team is not too expensive. The primary way they do this is by "ducking the luxury tax."
From a business standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. The NBA has a "soft" salary cap, which means teams can exceed the cap through specific actions and have a total team salary higher than that line. A few million above the cap line, however, teams pass into something called the luxury tax. In short, teams that cross that line pay multiple times the amount they go over, while teams under that line divide up the tax payment the expensive teams have paid.
If a team cross that line by $5 million, for example, they may have to pay $10 or $15 million for that salary because of that tax. That amount is then added to a pool that the other teams split.
Penny-pinching teams, therefore, try to ensure they are under the tax line and "out of the tax" because not only does it save them money on their team salary, but it also means they are eligible for the luxury tax payments. If you go from $1 million over the tax to just under, you might get back $2 million from your own books and then a tax payment of $15 or $20 million. That's a lot of money.
If the goal was to maximize profits, perhaps the Cavaliers should approach this Trade Deadline looking to get out of the luxury tax. They are close, just $1.7 million over the line. If the Cavs wanted to offload enough salary to get under that line, they could.
Such a move would be the antithesis of trying to win, however. It would be making a non-basketball trade to save money. It's hard to tell the players and coaches that you are all-in as an organization to winning games and then trade away a useful player or a draft asset to save money rather than improve the roster.
The Cavaliers have been insanely good this season, they have a rich owner, and there is a clear path ahead of them to pushing for the NBA Championship. Fans have to hope that is enough momentum for them to reach for a title instead of reaching for extra money.