Except that is the exact reason why we took the contract, to add a big piece. JR has a player option. So if he wants to, he can stay. Shump is restricted. So we can go over to sign him. TT is restricted too, and apparently he wants to get paid. So it might take a tap dance, but there is a possibility of picking up an interesting player with this contract. But you are correct, expectations should be managed.
Sure, Cavs have Bird rights to Smith and Shumpert, and can pay both of them up to the max if they want. In theory they can keep both.
However, my back of the envelope math says that with Smith and Shumpert both back, both making in the $6.5M range (which may understate what the open market will pay them), and with Thompson and Delly back, and of course with LeBron and Love back, and with the (notional) #24 pick in the draft, plus the taxpayers MLE -- the Cavs' team salary will be over $102M, probably over $106M. I have seen some estimate the Cavs' team salary in 2015-16 at circa $100M, but what I am saying is it will be higher.
By comparison, per Hoopshype, Brooklyn has the highest team salary this year at $87M.
It simply isn't reasonable to think the Cavs will bring all their free agents back AND use the Haywood trade chip to bring back significant additional salary. And obviously you would need to bring back salary of some sort to make the trade math work if you were to trade Haywood. For that reason, I thought it was a good idea to trade Haywood at the deadline at his lower 2014-15 salary for a package along the lines of Plumlee and Norris Cole, which would have been a financially efficient use of the Haywood asset.
But he wasn't traded, and that's why I think the main value of the Haywood chip at this point is as protection in case Love, Thompson, Shumpert, or Smith leaves in free agency.
Actually, I should omit Thompson here, because I think there is virtually no chance that he leaves. And I think the chances are extremely high that Love stays as well. Delly will probably be back too, but I don't think he will break the bank.
That leaves Smith and Shumpert. Unlike many, I actually was cautiously optimistic about the trade for Smith. But of these two, I think the Cavs would clearly prioritize Shumpert. He is younger, and of course the Cavs can match any offer he receives since he is an RFA. With their willingness to spend, the Cavs may deter any potential offers.
But with Smith, given his age and mileage, I think the Cavs should proceed with caution. Rather than overpay to keep him, the Cavs can try to use the Haywood contract to slot a player into Smith's salary. This will be easier said than done, because the Cavs presumably won't want to offer much in addition to the savings the Haywood contract will provide, and they won't want to add just any player (or players) who happen to be available via a salary dump.
This all assumes that Smith will decline his player option. At this point, I think this is a safe assumption.
Another thing people need to keep in mind when they worry about the Cavs' potentially not using the Haywood trade chip, is that the Cavs unexpectedly (well, maybe not that unexpectedly) were granted the DPE this year for the Varejao injury, and were able to leverage this tool to acquire a much needed bigman, plus two wings. Without the Varejao injury, the Cavs wouldn't have been able to acquire all three players. So another way to look at it is that Mozgov is the player the Cavs wanted to acquire via the Haywood chip in summer 2015. They just got him half a season early.
