Cleveland Cavaliers: 5 moves to upgrade the roster for 2017-18

5. Try to dump salary/trade for upgrades on non-essential pieces

The Cavaliers are shelling out a guaranteed $125.7 million for the upcoming season, and that number increases if they were to fully guarantee the $1.3 million and $1.5 million salaries for Kay Felder and Edy Tavares, respectively.

With the 2017-18 NBA salary cap projected to be $101 million and the luxury tax line at $121 million, it’s pretty clear the Cavs are already WAY over both projections. And again, this would be without including the cap holds and price to re-sign bench pieces like Korver and both D-Wills.

Every dollar over that luxury tax threshold costs management millions for a roster not good enough to beat the Warriors, and in order to sign even fringe rotation players in free agency (outside of the $5.2 million taxpayer mid-level exception), the front office would need to cut massive amounts of salary.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

The most obvious trade piece is Kevin Love, but a deal moving him would have to be for another integral piece to form a new Big Three, or for a couple of quality 3-and-D wings. Either way, trading Love wouldn’t be a salary-shedding move, so we’ll save him for later.

However, players like Richard Jefferson ($2.5 million), Channing Frye ($7.4 million salary next year), Iman Shumpert ($10.3 million in 2017-18 before an $11 million player option in 2018-19) and even Tristan Thompson ($16.4 million next year, $17.5 million in 2018-19, $18.5 million in 2019-20) would make sense as cost-cutting moves — if the goal is to create cap room.

King James Gospel

Richard Jefferson is inching closer toward retirement and was obliterated by Kevin Durant whenever they were matched up. Frye played a grand total of 11 minute in the Finals, despite being a useful floor-spacer in the regular season, so he’s expendable and could probably be moved to a team in need of frontcourt depth, veteran experience and three-point shooting.

Shumpert was one of the few players the Cavaliers could stick on KD outside of LeBron James, but his offense was so appalling it overshadowed any potential contributions he might have made on the defensive end. Unfortunately, his $11 million deal might be harder to move after averaging 3.6 points per game on .235/.222/.800 shooting splits in the Finals.

Thompson would be the hardest of the group to move, not only because he’s owed $52.4 million over the next three seasons despite being an over-glorified rebounder, but because his value on the glass and being able to hold his own defending guards on the perimeter would be hard for Cleveland to replace — even with his hefty price tag attached.

Trading TT might be taking the salary dumping a bit far, especially since a potential Kevin Love trade would leave the Cavs severely outmatched on the boards. But if Cleveland could find a way to trade/dump R.J., Frye and Shumpert, plus drop Tavares, they’d free up $21.7 million in cap space — enough to drop them just $104.9 million in guaranteed money.

Unfortunately, that’s not enough to get them under the salary cap, and that’s assuming trades involving Jefferson, Frye and Shumpert weren’t bringing back any additional salary. That means one of Thompson or J.R. Smith would have to be moved to get Cleveland under the cap and in position to sign legitimate difference-makers.

This would be a crucial step if the goal is contending with the Warriors, but as you can see, it’s a long shot. Like, an Achilles-throwing-his-spear-from-100-yards-away-in-the-opening-battle-of-Troy kind of long shot.

At this juncture, the Cavs would be better off either keeping those players and looking to re-sign their own free agents, or trading those non-essential pieces for only slight upgrades — if they could even be found.