2020-2021 ROSTER TALK: Archived

[DanSchwartzgan]

What kind of deal would you look for? I tried to center something around Powell and a heavily protected 2025 1st (one that essentially would become 2 seconds) but couldn’t quite put enough pieces together to match salary.
- Powell and Johnson would work, but with how well Johnson has been playing would they really trade him?
- Does Dallas still have rights to Lee, and they could S&T him for the salary needed to pair with Powell for a match? But that becomes less enticing and would require less restrictions for the pick.

I generally like to start with the financial and roster goals of the other team rather than seeing what I want to remove from the Dallas roster.  With that said, it is hard to make sense of this without involving Johnson and probably Powell.   

Next season Cleveland has about $92.5mm committed.  It will cost around $20 million to retain Allen and pay their first round pick.  Add the MLE to that and they are they are about $14mm under the tax.  That is about how much future salary they could take on in a deal and be in a similar tax position to where they are now.  

They have Allen, Love, Nance and Prince up front.  They have plenty of young guards (so Green isn't probably that valuable to them) in Sexton, Garland, Okoru and Windler.  Kevin Porter is a swing wing SG/SF and Cedi gets a lot of their SF minutes.  I would argue that SF is their biggest need, but I don't see THJ being an answer as he'll just leave on them.  Johnson's expiring deal is a must if you don't include THJ.  So, before I go to the trade machine, I'm thinking Johnson, some SF help and whatever else it takes to get there.  

Drummond/Cedi for Johnson/Powell/DFS works financially, but throws Dallas slightly into the LT.  You probably move THJ back into the starting lineup and have a SF/SG primary rotation of THJ/JRich backed by Cedi (with Green just outside the 9 man rotation).  Drummond/Willie are your rim runners and KP/Maxi are your shooting bigs.  You definitely end the game with Drummond on the bench as he's a poor FT shooter (so KP/Maxi to close games).  What this comes down to is whether the Drummond vs. Powell upgrade is enough to offset the DFS/Cedi downgrade.  I would argue DFS would look like crap offensively in Cleveland.  Cedi is already a better outside shooter with bad spacing.  Cedi is a good secondary playmaker.  You'd be trading Finney's D for Cedi's playmaking.  

This doesn't light my world in fire, but I think I can make it make sense.  The team would have to have some intel that projects significant improvement for Drummond, Cedi or both playing in the roles they would have in Dallas.