02-15-2021, 01:41 PM
Drummond excerpt from ESPN:
The challenge is matching salary to get him there via trade, as my colleague Bobby Marks noted on Twitter, given Drummond is making making $28.8 million in the final season of a five-year contract.
Take the Toronto Raptors, who have a hole at starting center where Aron Baynes (Drummond's former backup in Detroit) has struggled this season. Baynes, whose $7.35 million salary for 2021-22 is non-guaranteed, is Toronto's largest expiring contract besides the $31.5 million salary of six-time All-Star Kyle Lowry. Trading Lowry for Drummond is a non-starter, meaning the Raptors would have to include one of their younger players under long-term contract to match salaries.
Similar obstacles make it difficult if not impossible to send Drummond to the center-needy Nets (who have missed Allen since dealing him as part of their trade for James Harden) and Portland Trail Blazers (who hope to get Jusuf Nurkic back before too long, making this a temporary need).
The one contending team that can easily add salary is the Boston Celtics, who hold a $28.5 million trade exception from the sign-and-trade sending Gordon Hayward to the Charlotte Hornets. But even if the Celtics thought Drummond was the best use of their exception after adding former Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson in free agency, his salary doesn't quite fit.
Boston would have to get there by acquiring a player making a similar salary (Otto Porter Jr. of the Chicago Bulls would work) using the exception and then flipping him for Drummond -- a move the NBA might not be inclined to allow, depending how quickly the two trades occurred in sequence.
Given those challenges, Cleveland's best hope of trading Drummond would probably be for expiring contracts similar to the ones the Cavaliers sent to the Pistons last February. Unfortunately for Cleveland, there are fewer such albatross contracts on the books now that most of the deals signed in the free-spending summer of 2016 have concluded.
Perhaps the Bulls would be willing to swap Porter for Drummond with frontcourt starters Wendell Carter Jr. and Lauri Markkanen currently sidelined. Or the San Antonio Spurs might view Drummond as an upgrade on LaMarcus Aldridge, slumping amidst injuries at age 35. But it's unlikely those deals would offer the Cavaliers anything much better than the distant second-round pick they gave up to get Drummond.
The challenge is matching salary to get him there via trade, as my colleague Bobby Marks noted on Twitter, given Drummond is making making $28.8 million in the final season of a five-year contract.
Take the Toronto Raptors, who have a hole at starting center where Aron Baynes (Drummond's former backup in Detroit) has struggled this season. Baynes, whose $7.35 million salary for 2021-22 is non-guaranteed, is Toronto's largest expiring contract besides the $31.5 million salary of six-time All-Star Kyle Lowry. Trading Lowry for Drummond is a non-starter, meaning the Raptors would have to include one of their younger players under long-term contract to match salaries.
Similar obstacles make it difficult if not impossible to send Drummond to the center-needy Nets (who have missed Allen since dealing him as part of their trade for James Harden) and Portland Trail Blazers (who hope to get Jusuf Nurkic back before too long, making this a temporary need).
The one contending team that can easily add salary is the Boston Celtics, who hold a $28.5 million trade exception from the sign-and-trade sending Gordon Hayward to the Charlotte Hornets. But even if the Celtics thought Drummond was the best use of their exception after adding former Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson in free agency, his salary doesn't quite fit.
Boston would have to get there by acquiring a player making a similar salary (Otto Porter Jr. of the Chicago Bulls would work) using the exception and then flipping him for Drummond -- a move the NBA might not be inclined to allow, depending how quickly the two trades occurred in sequence.
Given those challenges, Cleveland's best hope of trading Drummond would probably be for expiring contracts similar to the ones the Cavaliers sent to the Pistons last February. Unfortunately for Cleveland, there are fewer such albatross contracts on the books now that most of the deals signed in the free-spending summer of 2016 have concluded.
Perhaps the Bulls would be willing to swap Porter for Drummond with frontcourt starters Wendell Carter Jr. and Lauri Markkanen currently sidelined. Or the San Antonio Spurs might view Drummond as an upgrade on LaMarcus Aldridge, slumping amidst injuries at age 35. But it's unlikely those deals would offer the Cavaliers anything much better than the distant second-round pick they gave up to get Drummond.