inliner311
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Rubio will play NBA basketball again, but I don’t see how the Cavs make any significant investment in him. My guess is that he will miss camp and the start of next season. I could theoretically see him back playing by the end of 2022/early 2023. Even giving him a roster spot on a min. deal is tenuous. He may not even be interested in that, may even rehab overseas. If he was down, I would do it for a very small, minimum or slightly above…but a 1 year deal…only to continue possessing his bird rights…with the understanding..get healthy…show us what you have left and if it all checks out, hell yeah we would talk longer term and bigger contract the next summer.
That being said, I think the Cavs are now highly likely to use Rubios near 18mil as the basis for a bigger move to address a need. That ends the bird rights thing even if he did want to eventually come back. But this is a cutthroat business. Dan is always willing to take $ on to make the team better or to gain an advantage by extracting assets and Altman Is not afraid to make a deal. They have to take the hand they’ve been dealt and make the best out of it. With RR healthy the Cavs likely weren’t trading him without getting an amazing return…but now they have a perfect vehicle sitting right there, a contract that can have value to certain teams and a contract big enough to make us real players in multiple.
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I think they need to use his contract. Rubio's ceiling salary wise is probably MLE now when he is healthy. I don't think there is any reason to tie up using him as an asset to preserve any bird rights.
At the start of the 23/24 season, Rubio will be 33 coming off his second ACL tear with a career average of 11pts and 7 assists per game. I just don't see how he could be worth more than the MLE at that point.