Pairing Bassie, AP, and Delonte give you 10 million in trading chips, plus a young talent like JJ.Free agency doesn’t start until July 1.
There are some fallacies out there regarding the Cavaliers’ bulging salary cap.
The Cavs have several players who can be free agents on July 1, including forward LeBron James, center Shaquille O’Neal and center Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
Those players have something that is called a cap hold, an amount of money charged to the Cavs’ salary cap even though those players won’t be under contract.
O’Neal, for instance, has a cap number of $22,050,000 — 105 percent of his previous salary.
That cap hold remains until the player is waived or he signs with another team.
If a player retires — when he actually submits the official paperwork to the league office — his cap hold expires.
But many players don’t retire until they’re eligible for their NBA pension. That way, they can be used in sign-and-trade deals as salary filler years later.
That is probably why players such as Wally Szczerbiak and Lorenzen Wright still have cap holds on the Cavs’ salary cap. Szczerbiak’s cap hold is massive — $18,928,700 (even though it will be adjusted once the 2010 maximum salary is calculated).
In all, the Cavs have about $66 million in cap holds for the 2010-11 season.
On July 1, the Cavs’ other cap holds will be guard Christian Eyenga ($850,800), guard Sebastian Telfair ($5,000,000), Ilgauskas ($1,110,000) and forward Jawad Williams ($1,029,389).
Obviously, the cap holds will eat up much of the Cavs’ salary cap.
If these free agents sign — with the Cavs or another team — their cap holds will expire.
If they sign elsewhere, the Cavs could have some cap space.
But it’s not as cut and dried as many think.
Since the Cavs are over the cap, they will have their mid-level exception at their disposal.
Of course, the Cavs will exhaust all efforts to re-sign James. But if he decides to play elsewhere, they likely will want to use him in a sign-and-trade.
Their worst-case scenario is to receive a hefty trade exception for James.
The Cavs aren’t expected to re-sign O’Neal or Ilgauskas.
More salary information
If guard Delonte West is on the roster by Aug. 3, his $4.5 million contract is guaranteed. If he is waived before that date, which might happen, they only owe him $500,000.
July 8 is the first day free agents can actually sign contracts.
The roster has some flexibility and the money to make something work.
We'll see what happens though.
