Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 reasons Kevin Love extension makes no sense

3. Even more financial stiffness

In the upcoming season, Kevin Love’s new contract will take up almost 24 percent of the total salary cap of the Cleveland Cavaliers. It will remain at 24 percent throughout the whole duration of his contract, meaning that a player over the age of 30 will be held responsible for almost a quarter of the team’s salary.

This situation gets even worse when you add the figures of Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith and George Hill, players that almost complete the total amount of money a team can offer to its players.

To be honest, the Cavaliers were way over the salary cap even after the departure of LeBron James, but adding a huge contract for four more years should definitely deteriorate the situation. The truth is, we won’t see any teams dumb enough to trade for Thompson, Smith or Hill unless the Cavaliers use sweeteners of some sort.

Some cap relief is coming in 2019, and more will follow in 2020, but for the next year or so, this extension bogs down the cap sheet.