Cavs: No, Andre Drummond isn’t getting bought out

Why the Cleveland Cavaliers won’t buy Andre Drummond out

There’s been a growing buzz in NBA circles that the Cavs may end up buying Drummond out of the rest of his contract (Athletic paywall), perhaps getting some small rebate from his large salary and send him on his way. It would enable him to go elsewhere and sign for cheap with a contender and get his shot at a championship.

Sounds good for everybody, right? Cavs owner Dan Gilbert can save a couple million, some contender can fill a need with his services, and Drummond gets his ring-chasing out of the way at the early age of 27.

Let’s think again.

That contender is almost certainly going to be the Brooklyn Nets, a team that needs a center more than any other contender in the NBA. The Nets already had their shot at getting a center the traditional way in the trade that landed them James Harden. They could have perhaps requested JaVale McGee from the Cavs in the process of that trade and didn’t.

So now the idea is that after the Nets missed their chance, the Cavs will simply yield Drummond to them for nothing? Not only that, but the Cavs expect to be in the playoff mix as the season goes on, at least for a play-in seed. Why on earth would they hand a potential playoff opponent the missing piece to their roster that they can bludgeon the Cavs with for four games?

It’s a preposterous theory that requires Nets general manager Sean Marks to have some kind of Jedi mind trick powers over Gilbert and Cavs GM Koby Altman.

No, the Brooklyn Nets are going to have to figure this problem out the old-fashioned way. The Cavs aren’t going to solve it for them for free.