Now with the Lakers apparently in the front seat to acquire Anthony Davis, the price reportedly is Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, and an All Star caliber player a 3rd team is willing to trade to the Pelicans via the Lakers in return for the #4 pick. The Knicks reportedly do not have the assets to compete with what the Lakers can offer.
What’s interesting about this is what type of team would be more interested in acquiring the #4 pick in this draft than simply keeping their own All Star caliber player?
You wouldn’t think many contenders would be interested in trading an All Star for an unproven #4 draft pick, especially in this draft that’s widely regarded as a 2 sure fire talent draft.
The only contenders interested in doing this would be teams looking to unload former all stars who are taking up too much cap room, and these aren’t the type of players the Pelicans are looking for.
Which brings me to the point of my post... Could the Cavs potentially dangle Kevin Love and be the 3rd team to facilitate a deal for the Pelicans?
Love is still in his prime, but there are maybe a few teams who have more attractive pieces to offer such as Washington and Bradley Beal for example.
Offering Love simply as the player when determining the value the Cavs can offer as a 3rd team isn’t an impossibility to happen, but can be beat by a few other teams and players.
But using Washington as an example... they have no plans in going in a full rebuild mode. If they offer Beal in a deal, the #4 pick would not be a good enough return with where they are trying to go. They would want established talent back when taking back Beal’s outgoing salary in a deal, or cap space via expiring contracts back to replace Beal.
The Pelicans however are looking to acquire an all star player with their #4 pick...they aren’t interested in sending out any more talent to complete a deal for the all star they seek in return.
This is where I think the Cavs could become a serious player in all of this and could end up being the potential 3rd team to help facilitate this deal.
The Cavs can offer/do the one thing that’s as valuable if not more valuable than any other commodity in today’s NBA trading realm...take back bad contracts and salary to acquire assets.
No way on earth is Love gonna fetch a #4 pick on just a straight up trade, Love for the pick. He simply doesn’t have that type of value as the player alone. Attach Love to taking on the Pelicans or Lakers dead $ weight necessary in matching salary to compete a trade, now you have a VERY attractive offer.
Again, the majority of not all the other teams with a current All Star player like Love or even better are not in position nor want to take on bad contracts or money. They will want talent in return, or the cap space. The Cavs can offer the Pelicans a solid veteran all star piece in Love, and not ask for like talent in return or cap space...they are willing to take on bad $.
The problem with this relative to the Pelicans is they don’t have any slam dunk bad contracts to come off of...or this would be a slam dunk scenario. They are paying Solomon Hill 13 million to ride the bench this season, but unless they wanted his cap space immediately, his expiring deal is their most attractive trade chip come this year’s trade deadline.
If the Pelicans say we’re still sitting in Ryan Anderson’s atrocious deal among others could have taken on the bad $ or even offered JR Smith to sweeten the deal and help clear space. But that’s not the case with the Pelicans.
The Lakers however only have 16 million going out in salary with Ball and Ingram, and are well short of money needed to complete the deal. (AD makes 25 million and Love a little over 28)
The Cavs could still offer Love to the Pelicans for the #4 pick, but in the end im not sure it’s gonna be enough. Neither the Pelicans nor the Lakers carry bad contracts and $ the Cavs couldnoffer to take on in addition to offering Love which would make their trade proposal much more attractive.
I’m not entirely sure how incoming and outgoing salary works In making 3 team deals work. With Love making 28 hypothetically going to the Pelicans, and AD making 25 going to the Lakers, their salaries obviously match up. The Lakers however only have 16 million going out with Lonzo and Ingram, well short where they need to be to match up with either Love or AD’s $. They could make the #4 selection for the Cavs and sign the pick immediately and wait 30 days to trade him, similar to what the Cavs did with Andrew Wiggins to acquire Love, and use the as outgoing salary, but I’m not sure that timeline falls in line with everyone else’s.
Unless the Cavs can do something to make up the $ the Lakers need outgoing, I’d be shocked if offering Love alone would be enough to be the 3rd team here.
Having the #4 #5 and #26 picks however would be one hell of a start with this rebuild!