[Lloyd] Cavs engaged with Rockets on deal involving Alec Burks

Keep hope alive post of the day...

Salary wise there is perfect space to create a 3 team deal for New Orleans.

Hou in: Anthony Davis, Alec Burks
Hou out: knight, capela, hartenstein, house, 4 1s

No in: capela, Hart, house 3 1s
No out: Davis

Cleveland in: knight, 1st
Cleveland out: burks

 

Ok, we can move Nene, Chriss, Ennis and Hartenstein to match Burks's salary. So why would Cleveland do that?

 

“Of Burks ‘quality’”. Burks isn’t the only rotation wing on market.

If the Rockets were intent on trading for a replacement level player, they could dump Chriss/Ennis on a third team for a couple seconds and take on Ellington. Wouldn’t get to save Tillman money though.

 

Burks expires at the end of the season while Knight has another year remaining. If no other moves are available, at least we will have more cap space in the summer.

The should really do both (if feasible). Long term the cap space is important.

 

Yep, this is what happens when you pay role players like stars. Ryno had the second highest salary on the team at one point lol.

 

Dude, nobody is giving up two 2nd rounders for Chriss/Ennis. Chriss is 100% a negative asset, so you're basically telling me James Ennis is worth 2 second rounders for someone? I don't see it somehow.

 

Yikes.

The Rockets will not have cap space no matter what they do. Paul/Harden/Capela and cap holds is already around $100 million.

This isn’t a trade for cap space; it’s entirely to save Tillman money. He also doesn’t have to pay for the first round pick’s guaranteed contract as a bonus.

 

My thoughts exactly.

That said, maybe the idea is to immediately redirect Burks. Maybe the Cavs are the only suitor that will absorb Knight’s deal without multiple draft picks.

 

Rockets ownership is not spending because he doesn't BELIEVE. Warriors have $10m more salaries than us, and it's costing them multiples of that amount. To put that into perspective, even before Cousins they were spending $5m more than us and with almost no bad contracts (Iggy is overpaid but not useless).

If ownership doesn't believe, they will look at it as a lottery. Roll of the dice, as if they had nothing to do with the chances.

 

I get that it’s a tax move. I’m saying that when Burks expires, the 12 million or so on his contract will become open space (or a percentage of it). The Rockets will have more space if that happens than they would if they kept night. It’s not a sexy move and it doesn’t help this season but I honestly prefer it to holding on to Knight who is damaged goods at this point imho

 

True. The Warriors didn’t sign a powerless forward for 4 years, 80 million dollars.

 

No it wont. We'd still be over the cap which was his point, so that 'money' disappears and we can't use it again.

 

Damn that sucks.

 

Still won’t have any cap space since the cap is going to be around $109 mil but they will be under the luxury tax which should be around $132 mil.

 

Welp sounds like we are ****ed either way. We don’t have any positive trade assets outside of our top 4 guys.

 

I don’t see any team trading for Knight because they want him as a player. He’s likely done.

 

Pretty much and we will basically have to stay under the luxury tax next year no matter what. I don’t know what rabbits Morey can pull out of his hat now. That Ryno contract was just an absolutely radioactive pile of trash.

 

Notice he has been awful once ownership changed

 

Yeah, which is kinda my point in that we're trying to use his salary to match a trade but teams want a 1st just to take him, so getting a serviceable role-player back too is gonna be very difficult. It would have to be someone super-cheap where we can use Nene and Chriss plus the 1st to match salaries, that is of course unless we include Gordon or Capela.

 

What caliber player can we expect?

Name a few players you believe are available for the package you outlined.