Deal for Korver nearly finished
Cleveland close to adding sharpshooter from Atlanta, still looking to acquire a point guard
NEW YORK — Mo Williams is joining Mike Dunleavy in the trade to Atlanta, multiple sources confirmed to the Beacon Journal, but before the Cavaliers can complete the deal that will bring Kyle Korver to Cleveland, they are first trying to clean up some bookkeeping matters with the Portland Trail Blazers.
All sides were trying to complete the trade Friday.
The Blazers currently own the Cavs’ first-round pick in 2018 as compensation for taking on Anderson Varejao’s contract at last year’s trade deadline. It would make life much simpler — and create an extra trade chip — if general manager David Griffin can give them his team’s 2017 pick and take back the ’18 pick. At the time, league rules prevented Griffin from trading his ’17 pick.
The collective-bargaining agreement not only prohibits teams from trading away first-round picks in consecutive years, it also limits how far out teams can trade to seven years. Since this is the 201617 season, for example, the Cavs can only trade first-round picks until 2023.
Without getting too bogged down in CBA minutiae, the “seven year rule” requires the Cavs would have to leave their draft picks unprotected in both 2020 and 2022 if they traded them away today. Since LeBron James can be a free agent in the summer of 2019 and both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love can be free agents in 2020, leaving picks completely unprotected in 2020 and 2022 is not the best long-term business plan.
By making this subtle move with Portland, Griffin would be free to trade his 2019 and 2021 picks. The ’19 pick is headed to Atlanta and by all indications, the Cavs are poised to send their ’21 out in another deal soon — perhaps for either a big or a point guard.
Williams’ inclusion in the deal reduces the Cavs’ payroll and frees up a muchneeded roster spot since both he and Chris “Birdman” Andersen are both dead weights on the roster. Andersen, out for the season following a torn ACL, is not part of the deal with the Hawks, two sources confirmed.
While adding another shooter to replace the injured J.R. Smith is nice, James’ focus hasn’t changed. The roster isn’t championship-ready until they add another point guard.
“We still got a couple more things we need to do,” James said Friday. “We got to get a point guard. It’s my last time saying it. We need a point guard.
“I think that’s the next step. You look at our league, most teams have three point guards. We only have two with Ky and our rook in Kay (Felder). I think just having that security blanket. Every NFL team has three quarterbacks. Having that security blanket in case of a (Derek) Carr. We’ll see what happens, but, we’re happy with our team right now.”
Carr, of course, is the Oakland Raiders quarterback who is out with a broken leg.
Once the Korver deal is complete, coach Tyronn Lue said he will come off the bench and DeAndre Liggins will remain a starter because Lue likes the way Liggins defends opposing point guards.
Lue called Korver one of the three best shooters coming off screens, grouping him with the Warriors’ tandem of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.
“Especially a guy who can move without the ball the way he moves coming off screens and things like that, there’s no better guy,” Lue said. “You put him on the f loor with Channing, RJ, LeBron and the floor will open (up) wide, so now you got to pick your poison when you try to help off Kyrie and LeBron.”