There is a law in science that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Someone without a scientific degree would probably phrase it like this: everything has a cost. Cage the Elephant might say "ain't nothing in this world for free." The Cleveland Cavaliers are going to experience this lesson firsthand this summer.
They should be (and largely have been) applauded for their work trading for De'Andre Hunter at the Trade Deadline. It made their team better in the short-term and still accomplished their financial goal of getting out of the luxury tax. Hunter can be the 3-and-D forward the Cavs have been chasing for years.
While the trade is unequivocally an upgrade for this season, there are implications for the franchise moving forward. Hunter will make $23.3 million next season and $24.9 million in the final year of his deal in 2026-27.
That means the Cavaliers' books will look very different this summer than they did before the trade. Caris LeVert was the matching salary in the deal in large part because his contract is expiring this summer. If they had kept him around, it seemed very likely they would have let him walk in free agency, clearing his $16 or so million off the books and giving the team a small amount of space under the second luxury tax apron with which to re-sign their other free agents.
Now the Cavaliers are committed to Hunter's $23.3 million for next season. That is significant because this team is getting much more expensive next season. While Hunter, Darius Garland and Max Strus are receiving modest increases year-to-year, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley will both begin new contract extensions.
Mitchell's salary will leap from $35 million to $46 million, while Mobley will go from his rookie scale deal to 25 percent of the salary cap, estimated at $38.6 million for 2025-26; that's an increase of $27 million. If Mobley makes an All-NBA team, that number will be even higher.
Add it all up, and the Cavaliers don't only project to be in the luxury tax next season -- they will almost certainly be over the second luxury tax apron. That means money out of Dan Gilbert's pockets, yes, money he will certainly be willing to pay for a contender. It also means team-building restrictions, such as the inability to combine contracts in a trade, limitations in signing players, etc.
Those restrictions only increase over multiple seasons. In 2026-27, then, when Jarrett Allen's contract extension kicks in, the Cavaliers are already projected right at the second apron line with only nine players under contract. Keeping a team together with four All-Stars plus multiple expensive role players is not an easy task in the modern NBA.
Add it all up, and it means that one players on the current roster is as good as gone this summer.
Ty Jerome is likely gone this summer
Ty Jerome has had a breakout season for the Cleveland Cavaliers. After losing all but two games of last year to a serious ankle injury, Jerome has bounced back in a major way and is playing a key role for the best team in the Eastern Conference.
The sixth-year pro is averaging 11.3 points per game in just 19 minutes per contest, shooting 43 percent from deep and 89.2 percent from the free-throw line. His 1.2 steals per game are just behind Donovan Mitchell's 1.4 for the team lead, and his steal rate of 2.9 percent ranks inside the Top 10 in the NBA.
That means Jerome, a pending free agent, is barreling toward a solid payday this summer. He currently makes just $2.5 million in the second year of the two-way contract he signed in the summer of 2023. Given that the Cavaliers will be well over the first luxury tax apron and almost certainly over the second, they will not have access to any salary cap exceptions with which to sign Jerome to a new contract.
What they will have is something called "Early Bird Rights" which gives teams options to re-sign their own players. Those rights give the Cavaliers two options with which to re-sign Jerome. The first is to bring him back at anywhere up to 14075% of his current salary. That would be a contract starting at just $4.3 million, which will almost certainly not be enough to convince him to stay as other teams will offer much more than that on the open market.
The other path is more feasible; the Cavs can start a contract at 105% of the "average player salary" from the previous year. It's not clear exactly what that number will be, but it's in the ballpark of $12 million. The goal is for teams to essentially be able to compete with the Mid-Level Exception other teams could use to sign players.
Starting a four-year deal at or just above $12 million would be Cleveland could offer a contract somewhere in the four-year, $54-58 million range, depending on exactly where the average player salary checks in. That is a contract that would be competitive with other offers that Jerome might receive in the summer.
Yet such a contract would skyrocket the Cavaliers through the tax apron stratosphere. With multiple roster spots still to fill they would be something like $18 million over the second tax apron line, putting their final number over $20 million past the mark. They would have no hope of getting under that line, and they would be even further restricted in future seasons.
Teams can entertain crossing that line for a season or two, but longer than that and the restrictions start to add up and the impact is punitive. Not having the flexibility to get out of the second apron is a heavy burden for the team to bear moving forward, and making that commitment this early in the life cycle of a contending Cleveland team is a big ask.
There is a way for the Cavaliers to bring back Ty Jerome this summer. Given how well he is playing, how expensive De'Andre Hunter will be next season, and the total number of salaries the franchise has committed to, the odds are that Jerome's final games with the franchise may be coming in the next three months.