Carmelo Anthony

Len said:

I kind of don't understand this situation. Why can't we just out right sign both Melo and Lebron? Wouldn't a sign and trade eliminate talent from our roster? Wouldn't it be in their best interest to just sign for 20 mil a year outright instead of taking away from the teams bench players? Maybe I'm off with my thoughts but I was thinking, why wouldn't they just sign and tell the Heat and the Knicks to just deal with it.

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To sign them both outright at 18 million per year each, you need to get your payroll to 27 million before signing them
To sign them both outright for 20 million per year each, you need to get your payroll to 23 million before signing them
Both of those numbers are still paycuts for both of them.

So even if you are lucky enough to have them both willing to come here for paycuts, you still need to trade Andy, Jack, Tristan, and Bennet to teams under the cap without receiving a single dollar in salary back. And you have to accomplish this in the next 10-12 days. And both players will have multiple other suitors trying to do the same thing.

Pursuing Melo is a fool's errand.

Part of The Bullshit Whisperer's latest column:

10. The Cavs most certainly are monitoring the Carmelo Anthony situation with the Knicks. Anthony is opting out of his contract to become an unrestricted free agent, according to multiple reports. But with the Cavs' attention on the draft and other free agents, pursuing Anthony (in a sign-and-trade or otherwise) is not yet a priority.

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That is why it would have been nice to draft a healthy Embiid. It makes it more plausible to have Melo and LeBron on the same roster when you have rim protector and presence like that in the paint. We need to find one elsewhere now to make it work. That is why I'm more comfortable with Melo playing shooting guard over PF, because running LeBron or Melo at full time PF isn't going to work. I think we should still draft Embiid if we want to go the Melo route. And just let Embiid recover and hit the weight room and get stronger in the meantime. Can we do that thing with Andy where we opt out of his contract and sign him to a new, smaller deal? Let Andy and Zeller hold down the center in the meantime. Kyrie-Dion-LeBron-Melo-Andy (Embiid).

It is fun putting out all these crazy ideas (which are actually plausible considering what many rosters have managed to do now days), but fit is very important in situations like this. Talent is part of it, but the talent has to fit. Kyrie-Wiggins-LeBron-Melo is nice, but without a huge, defensive center inside, that isn't going to work. Just too small inside, lacking severe interior defense. Most teams would kill that on the boards too.

Or just to get really crazy. Why not trade Jack (or expiring replacement), TT, Dion, and Bennett for Love and Turiaf. Throw in future 1sts for current #1 to make it happen. Let LeBron and Melo split the cap space that is now available after letting Deng, Hawes, Gee, and Andy walk (not sure what it would be). So we are looking at Kyrie-Melo-LeBron-Love-(center). I'm not sure what kind of cap would be available but I think it is actually theoretically possible. Kyrie and Love would be the only players basically on the roster (with Zeller and Karasev), combining for a little under 25 mil. The cap is at 65 mil right? Letting LeBron and Melo split the 40 mil left over, or take a little less if they want. Hey, Miami was trying to create their own big 4, why not create ours :chuckles: That was fun.

edit- Okay, even though that last one is plausible, I was thinking about it, and it is probably just easier keeping the #1 pick. We would still be creating a big 4 essentially (assuming the #1 pick pans out like we hope). The best line up for fit wise I would say is Kyrie-Wiggins-LeBron-Love. But trading for Love causes us to lose a lot of our assets (worth it), so we lose our bench. But the ability to sign Melo outright allows us to keep most of our depth, but the fit isn't as good. Decisions, decisions in the fantasy land of my brain.

JSS2306 said:

I'm sure like Popovich, Blatt would tell you he wants players that are over themselves. I like the direction the team is headed and I don't believe Melo is the guy to lead a bunch of youngsters into the future.

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Contradictory?


What would the cap look like with signing Melo (no Lebron), Kyrie signing his max extension, and Waiters extending next year?

What would the minutes look like at 1-2-3-4 with Kyrie-Waiters-Wiggins-Melo-(Bennett?)-(Thompson?)

Kyrie gets 35 a game at PG?
Waiters gets 22 a game at SG, 13 at PG?
Wiggins gets 9 a game at SF, 26 at SG?
Melo gets 5 a game at PF, 30 at SF?
Bennett gets 26 a game at PF, 9 at SF?
Thompson gets 17 at PF, 18 at C?
Hawes gets 9 at C?
Varejao gets 8 at C?

7 or 8 man rotation?

Irving, Waiters, Wiggins, Melo, Bennett, Thompson all getting 35 minutes a game.

Gouri has me convinced that Melo is coming to Cleveland. I can't believe I am even thinking this.

0% chance Melo is coming here I don't even know why you guys are trying to talk yourself into this.

getBUCKED said:

0% chance Melo is coming here I don't even know why you guys are trying to talk yourself into this.

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I think Melo really wants to win. Teaming up with Lebron, Wiggins, and Kyrie, regardless of where, means he will. His wife can still live in NYC.

We don't get Carmelo unless it's to team up with LeBron

How to get LeBron and Carmelo for $20 million each. We sign LeBron then sign for $20 million and trade for Carmelo sending out $15 million.

The definitive source for our own salary is the Dougular's post here

http://realcavsfans.com/showthread.p...re-Draft-Picks

47,160,239 in total contracts for 12 players. The cap hold for our scheduled #1 pick is 4,436,900 for a total of $51,697,139. If you assume a cap of 62.5 million and assume LeBron would sign for $20 million, we have to clear $9,197,139. If we release Gee and find someone to take Jack for nothing back (even if we have to send a pick), we can sign LeBron to a starting contract of just over 20 million. There or no roster cap holds since we end up with 12 players.

To then get Melo at $20 million we do a sign and trade with the knicks where we send out at least $15 million (no cap holds to worry about). If you assume LeBron would rather we keep Andy, a trade of Tristan + Dion + Bennett + Hopson for Carmelo at $20 million works.

That leaves a starting lineup of Kyrie/Wiggins/LeBron/Melo/Andy, 4 other players on the roster (Zeller, Karasev, Felix, Dellvadova) plus our 2nd round pick to make 10. The 5 open roster spots we can fill with the room exception and league minimum veterans. It also leaves us well under the luxury tax for a year.

We could have Kyrie, Kobe, KD, and Lebron and he still wouldn't want to play in Cleveland - the market is too big of a factor for him. He will end up in Chicago, and it is a tremendous fit for him.

KI4MVP said:

We don't get Carmelo unless it's to team up with LeBron

How to get LeBron and Carmelo for $20 million each. We sign LeBron then sign for $20 million and trade for Carmelo sending out $15 million.

The definitive source for our own salary is the Dougular's post here

http://realcavsfans.com/showthread.p...re-Draft-Picks

47,160,239 in total contracts for 12 players. The cap hold for our scheduled #1 pick is 4,436,900 for a total of $51,697,139. If you assume a cap of 62.5 million and assume LeBron would sign for $20 million, we have to clear $9,197,139. If we release Gee and find someone to take Jack for nothing back (even if we have to send a pick), we can sign LeBron to a starting contract of just over 20 million. There or no roster cap holds since we end up with 12 players.

To then get Melo at $20 million we do a sign and trade with the knicks where we send out at least $15 million (no cap holds to worry about). If you assume LeBron would rather we keep Andy, a trade of Tristan + Dion + Bennett + Hopson for Carmelo at $20 million works.

That leaves a starting lineup of Kyrie/Wiggins/LeBron/Melo/Andy, 4 other players on the roster (Zeller, Karasev, Felix, Dellvadova) plus our 2nd round pick to make 10. The 5 open roster spots we can fill with the room exception and league minimum veterans. It also leaves us well under the luxury tax for a year.

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We can sign both to contracts very close to $20M without trading Dion and Bennett, but rather dumping salary. Also, I wouldn't trade Dion and Bennett before AV. AV+Jack+Karasev+1st is more than enough. We don't need to do a real trade, just an S&T.

We shouldn't be sending real assets to New York, and we don't really need to either.

gourimoko said:

We can sign both to contracts very close to $20M without trading Dion and Bennett, but rather dumping salary. Also, I wouldn't trade Dion and Bennett before AV. AV+Jack+Karasev+1st is more than enough. We don't need to do a real trade, just an S&T.

We shouldn't be sending real assets to New York, and we don't really need to either.

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I'd put Zeller in there before Karasev...I think Zeller is even set to make more this year

gourimoko said:

We can sign both to contracts very close to $20M without trading Dion and Bennett, but rather dumping salary. Also, I wouldn't trade Dion and Bennett before AV. AV+Jack+Karasev+1st is more than enough. We don't need to do a real trade, just an S&T.

We shouldn't be sending real assets to New York, and we don't really need to either.

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Why would NYC do this? If you read Phil's comments I don't think he really cares about losing Melo for nothing. And sometimes taking nothing is better than someone elses scraps. That 1st pick is going to be a late round 1st if he helps you guys get Melo. You are going to have to send some real assets to get him to help you. Right now Phil is untouchable cause he is stuck cleaning up a mess.

He can do whatever the fuck he wants /Teddy KGB.

He will not take flack from anyone if he lets Melo leave. All he has to do is sell it as making room for KD and the fans in NY will eat that up. If you were on the other end of table would you rather get nothing or that package you offered?

morgwon said:

Why would NYC do this? If you read Phil's comments I don't think he really cares about losing Melo for nothing. And sometimes taking nothing is better than someone elses scraps. That 1st pick is going to be a late round 1st if he helps you guys get Melo. You are going to have to send some real assets to get him to help you. Right now Phil is untouchable cause he is stuck cleaning up a mess.

He can do whatever the fuck he wants /Teddy KGB.

He will not take flack from anyone if he lets Melo leave. All he has to do is sell it as making room for KD and the fans in NY will eat that up. If you were on the other end of table would you rather get nothing or that package you offered?

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The Knicks have no cap space this year even if Melo leaves, and their draft pick cupboard is very empty the next few years because of awful trades. You honestly don't think they'd jump at the chance to add a first-rounder or two and some young and/or expiring contracts? If costs them almost nothing (they give zero shits about wasting money) and gains them plenty.

It is gis job to care about his assets. This is all contingent upon LeBron leaving Miami, so that Heat pick us going to be valuable. Unprotected lotto picks don't grow on trees. That Memphis pick could also be valuable.

Getting a top 10 pick, and a top 20 pick is not bad compensation.