Look at it in any way that you like: Ty Jerome is having the best season of his career.
Despite coming off of the bench for all but two of his 68 games, Jerome has been one of the most efficient and impactful guards in the entire NBA. He is four made free-throws away from a 50/40/90 season (50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3, 90 percent from the line, a historically significant club). That includes shooting 42.8 percent from 3-point range on 6.5 attempts per 36 minutes. That's the eighth-best mark in the entire NBA.
The impact metrics sing his praises as well. His Box Plus-Minus of +4.1 is by far the best mark of his career; in fact, it's the first time he's posted a positive number despite largely playing on winning teams. And he s not being propped up by superstar teammates, either. When Ty Jerome is on the court without Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, the Cleveland Cavaliers outscore opponents by a whopping 22.6 points per 100 possessions.
It's not only offense, either. Jerome is hardly prime Gary Payton, but his 2.1 steals per 36 minutes ranks eighth in the league, nestled amongst a long list of the best defenders in the NBA. His steal percentage of 2.8 (i.e. he ends 2.8 percent of opponent possessions with a steal while on the court) ranks sixth.
All of that is an incredibly good sign for the Cavaliers' chances of making a deep run in the playoffs. It's also a great sign for Jerome and his future prospects as a player who had to sign a two-way deal to stay in the league and has made a total of $5 million combined the last two seasons. He is in line for a significant pay raise, the first of his career.
Unfortunately, that might mean cashing in with a team other than the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Ty Jerome is heading for a heart-breaking payday
The Cavaliers are expected to be a second apron team next season, which means their team payroll will be high enough over the salary cap to push them above the second apron line and thus bring a number of team-building penalities to bear. One of those is the inability to sign new free agents to anything other than minimum contracts.
The Cavs can bring back Ty Jerome, but they only have his "Early Bird Rights" as he has been on the team for just two seasons. That means the most that they can offer is the Average Player Salary, which should be around $14 million to start. Jerome may be worth more than that on the open market.
It gets worse for Cleveland, however. If they sign Jerome to the maximum amount that they can offer him, they will have to pay many more times his actual salary in luxury tax penalities. Add onto that the team-building penalties that would come with being propelled deep into the tax and above the second apron, and the Cavaliers would be penalizing their future selves to pay Jerome in the present.
That might be worth it; they may push their chips in to make a short run at a title in the next two seasons before the second apron restrictions increase. Yet if Jerome is not the player he was this year, they will have handcuffed themselves to exhorbitant costs -- financial and in adding players -- for a very minimal return.
Bill Simmons of The Ringer hypothesized on a recent podcast that Jerome could be looking at three years and around $50 million; that's essentially the maximum that the Cavaliers can offer him. Other teams could swoop in and offer a similar contract, especially if he would sign for the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception, which is a similar number. That opens up the number of teams able to swoop in and sign Jerome.
Ty Jerome has earned a significant payday this summer. Can the Cavaliers justify giving it to him? And will the most they can offer be enough?
Maybe, and maybe. But the most likely outcome now appears to be another team being more comfortable in swooping in to outbid Cleveland and land one of this year's breakout stars. And there may not be much the Cavaliers feel they can do about it.