I mentioned in this thread that a reason for holding on to Haywood and his contract till this summer is as a hedge against Love leaving -- they could potentially use the contract to trade for someone to replace Love.
Now, personally, despite LeBron's tweet and everything else, my guess is Love does return next year. If he really wants to win, it's hard to imagine a better situation than Cleveland.
However, the Cavs have, in addition of course to LeBron, two other potential free agents on the roster who are among the top 7 in their rotation in JR Smith (who has a player option) and Shumpert (who is an RFA).
I'm hoping that the decreased offensive role Shump has in Cleveland, plus his injury history, will deter would-be suitors from making him a huge offer, and that the Cavs will be able to bring him back at either his QO of $3.7M or on a reasonable multi-year deal.
With Smith, I had said immediately after the trade that it was possible he would not exercise the player option and would become a free agent. The assumption at the time was he would be opting in, based on his erratic play and injury issues in New York this year. Well, now that he is playing well, it seems free agency is a real possibility, if not a likelihood.
Given his offensive numbers, I don't think it would be surprising if he were made a lucrative offer by another team, and the Cavs would risk losing him without getting anything back.
This would create a fairly big problem for them, since their ability to replace Smith's minutes (and shooting) in the rotation would be fairly limited. They would have the taxpayers MLE, the biannual exception, and of course minimum salaries.
But if they keep Haywood, they could potentially turn his contract into a viable rotation player or two.
Of course, the very idea that Haywood's contract has enough value to justify the Cavs' holding on to it remains untested and uncertain. I mean, the idea sounds good, but it may not work the way we or the Cavs are hoping.
This argument also, of course, applies to Tristan, who like Shump will be an RFA, but I would be very surprised if he's not back.
