By: dadelson

dadelson — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:59:03 +0000

according to espn’s Trade Machine (http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine), cleveland was $32M over the cap before the trade for shaq. they got rid of $16.5M when they dumped wallace and pavlovic, and took on $21M with shaq, so net net they added $4.5M in salary, leaving them $36.5M over cap, or about where the dallas mavs are right now. that cap figure counts the salaries of ilgauskas ($10.8M), varejao (last paid $5.7M), and szczerbiak ($13.7M)…if you figure they sign Z for less, varejao for more than they made last year, maybe that’s a wash. let wally go, and that’s 13.7M you spent last year that you don’t have to spend this year. lamar made $14.1M last year, but who knows if he can command the same price this year, in this economy…more importantly, you don’t *need* to resign both Z and varejao if you’ve got lamar. the point is, cleveland was already well over their cap limit, but didn’t get done what they needed to do to justify it…i’d guess gilbert might be willing to stay about where he’s at on his cap (give or tak a few mil) for the one year they have shaq there to give him a chance to compete with orlando, who now has vince carter, and to keep lebron when his contract’s up next year…that’s got to be that franchise’s top priority, and as i say, i’d bet gilbert will open the wallet.

By: bend

bend — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:29:43 +0000

In what realm of magic and wonder do the cavs have cap space to sign Odom?

Comments on: shaq to cleveland – what does it change?

By: dadelson

By: bend