Trade & FA 2025-26: Free Agency Starts 5pm CST/6pm EST

[omahen]

"Can Cleveland even aggregate salaries before getting under the second apron as long as they end up under the second apron after the trade" .... Yes. The CLE status would be where they are at the end of any trade. So if a trade ends under the A2 line, they can aggregate within that trade, regardless of where their payroll used to be. They would also end up hardcapped at A2. The issue is finding a team (or teams) to absorb the extra 13M or so in payroll they need to shed. 

In your proposal above, the one move of Ball-to-BKN (for air) is the catalyst, and after that they would be less than $4M over A2 which is a fairly workable margin to navigate in any number of ways. Add Wade to that move and they are below A2, able to simply match salary dollar-for-dollar in any way they wish. So they would no longer need to include a 3rd team if they were swapping talent-for-talent to get Giannis.

I am including additional team only because I assume Milwaukee would prefer expiring salary and FRP (or whatever else Cleveland would get for him) than long-term Allen deal. This goes in line with the report that Cleveland is looking to move Allen.