According to reports coming out of Oklahoma City, the Thunder reached an agreement to buyout the contract of forward Joe Smith allowing him to become a free agent and thus sign with any team.
Smith would be a natural choice to fill the hole left due to Ben Wallace’s injury, but things aren’t quite that simple.
Smith and Cavaliers forward Anderson Varejao share an agent in Dan Fegan. That in itself clouds the situation, according to a league source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
With Smith back on the team Varejao would certainly lose some playing time and given the fact that he can opt out of his contract at the end of the season, Fegan is unlikely to want to see the possibility of a big payday slip away.
Smith arrived in Cleveland just before the trading deadline last season. He quickly became a team favorite and the Cavs didn’t want to part with him, but had to to get Mo Williams.
LeBron James said after Sunday’s victory over the Hawks, that he would welcome Smith back.
The 6-10 Smith averaged 6.6 points and 4.5 rebounds with the Thunder this season but has seen his playing time vanish after a trade with the New Orleans Hornets was rescinded last month.
UPDATE: Things grew complicated when the Sacramento Kings released former Cav Drew Gooden just before the deadline Sunday. The forward, who is currently has a groin injury, is another fan favorite. Could it be the Cavs will have a choice of big men should they be unable to sign Smith?
The Kings got him in a trade from the Chicago Bulls before the trading deadline. He spent almost four seasons here and averaged close to 12 points and more than eight rebounds. This season he is averaging 13.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per game.
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Take Smith and his agent should to what is right for Joe which is signing the Cavaliers. Taking Gooden would be a step backwards. He is soft and often injured. Plus I’m sure lebron doesn’t want him back after he started all the trouble with the loser on the Wizzards who called Lebron overrated.
gooden???
please.
fegan also wants to get paid and the cavs are currently the team with the most cash to spend. if ferry settles for gooden’s hernia over joe smith i’ll mail a turd to cavs hq.
Temper temper terje…
Cavs’ should try to sign them both even though DG is hurt right now. Thet both know the system in Cleveland. Come playoff time, we going to need some bigs for interior defense, the playoff is a new season and a different type of ball game altogether. Z has seen his best day as a interior defensive player, BW is hurt, got to have the bigs.
what about Rasheed Wallace,with him believe me we are the champion.
Emack, word out of Sacramento is that Gooden has a sports hernia that may require surgery.
If we’re truly looking for a big, we should see if Manute Bol is still around
Give me a break! Why does it always have to be about the money. Do we now consider agent fees before a player who can possibly help getting us a championship? Just keep in mind the team that got us to where we are today!! Work with J.J. he can fill the spot.
Joanne, no offense but have you been watching the games? Hickson will be a good player in 2-3 years. Right now he is a defensive liability and not an option on the offensive side of the ball. 20 year old rookies don’t contribute to a team’s title run…
George…and when exactly was Gooden a “fan favorite”? That made me chuckle…
Are Joe Smith’s parents still alive? Ferry still has an opportunity to circumvent the agent, take a top-secret dead of night CIA flight to Joe’s parents’ house, and then kick in their patio door and demand to speak with Joe. Might as well, Ferry ain’t gonna re-up Varejao, anyway, at this point what’s he got to lose?
By the way, in a different venue, I mentioned the fact that Smith is represented by Fegan three weeks ago. I wrote this would surely adversely affect future Smith negotiations, assuming Smith was bought out. Why is this just now coming to light via some “anonymous” source now? Hell, I ain’t even a Cavs beat writer.
I’ve written before that I don’t read Windhorst anymore, as Big George is my new local guy, but I’ll bet Windy also “neglected” to mention the existence of Fegan whenever Windy started his own rumormongering via Windy’s own unintentionally hilarious secret sources. I guess he may have been too busy making up stuff about “Wally chemistry” instead of Gilbert’s shriveling businesses to mention it.
Yep, the Cavs are surely superior chemists with Wally and an insurance company paying Gilbert for Snow’s contract than with O’Neal, Camby or Chandler out there. It’s all about the chemistry. Uh huh. Looking forward to Wally making an O’Neal-like impact in the playoffs.
Actually, Gooden has since become a “favorite” to me, even if the guy has the short-term basketball memory of a fruit fly. Have you seen how absolutely freaky his facial hair has been looking as of late? I don’t even how to describe his wacky goatee design the last time I saw it. I don’t know if he still has it, but it was classic. And I mean classic. It looked like the hat of that guy in Archie comics, I forgot his name. Only it was on Gooden’s chin. Anybody who has the balls to go out in public looking like that has my blessing.
Jughead is his name, the guy in the Archie.
Speaking of Jughead, is there a dumber money manager in the NBA than Danny Ferry? Seriously. Maybe some guys are as dumb, but certainly not more dumb. I also seriously question the focus of Gilbert, or if he’s now so zoned out with his other financial problems, that he can’t lock onto just how badly his manager is screwing him.
Let’s look at this logically, like any logical/intelligent NBA franchise management officer would have done in the first place: Gilbert, the owner, orders Ferry, his underling, not to take on any additional payroll for next season, no luxury tax next season, no more luxury tax this season, no more luxury tax ever. So Ferry goes through this incredibly silly song and dance routine pretending that he was actually trying to make a major deal. OK, fine. Save face. As always, the local fawning sportswriters eat it up like it’s sweet vanilla yogurt on corn flakes. Mission accomplished.
In the meantime, the other elite teams were making little deals to eliminate salary and the corresponding luxury tax for two simple purposes: (a) to save on luxury tax and/or (b) to reduce a player from the roster, and then add a better player to the playoff roster so the payroll and luxury tax would likewise not be affected by the addition of that added salary. Prudent moves.
So what does Ferry do aside from leaking to the press some incredibly bogus stories about trying to acquire serious talent to win a title? He doesn’t make any major moves. He doesn’t make any minor moves. In point of fact, he does nothing. In the meantime, Danny Ainge makes some minor moves to open roster spots and reduce payroll in anticipation and preparation for subsequently signing temporary free agents for the playoffs. In the meantime, Otis Smith makes a trade to get a point guard after his all-star reserve went down for the season. In the meantime, Mitch Kupchak makes some moves to reduce luxury tax, and also to possibly open up a 15th roster spot for somebody like a Robert Horry or whoever. But Ferry? He does nothing.
Then, Joe Smith is bought out. And who represents Smith? The very agent who Ferry circumvented with that astonishing breach of business ethics, the now infamous top-secret South American plane trip in the dead of the night to bang on a player’s parents’ door.
So now, where do Gilbert and Ferry stand? The agent has the general manager, and, more to the point, has the franchise’s majority owner, by the short and curlies. Ferry’s boss expressly ordered Ferry to incur no more luxury tax. Not this season, not next season, not ever. But now, because Ferry didn’t make any minor moves to reduce this season’s payroll in preparation for possible free agents for the playoffs, with the albatross of the Varejao history in tow, and with Wallace very possibly out for the season, Smith’s agent will never have more leverage. Indeed, he can compel Ferry to sign a contract for an absolutely astronomical amount for a career vagabond for less than three months of work. And then, Gilbert will have to pay double this bloated figure in luxury tax!
So essentially, after taking the doubled luxury tax into account, Gilbert will now be forced to pay even more luxury tax, the very opposite of what Ferry was ordered to do, let alone will have to pay some everyday yutz like he’s a perennial all-star! Incredible.
If Gilbert had the foggiest clue as to what is really happening here, he’d be popping blood pressure bills like they were Mentos. What Ferry did to his boss is totally inexcusable. If one of his managers did this to Gilbert at Rock Financial, that now former employee would be getting a small severance package and applying for unemployment tomorrow. How could Ferry not possibly foresee what should have been patently obvious to anybody with half of a business brain, let alone half of a normal brain?
Ferry should seriously consider getting a government job after he’s fired in a few years. He’d be absolutely perfect.
wow alan. talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill! snow’s contract should more or less offset what they pay for smith once its off the books.
My question is, when did Alan start sitting in on all the Gilbert/Ferry meetings? And does he just follow Ferry around 24/7 or does he have his phone bugged? It must be one or the other or both in order to know that Ferry didn’t even attempt to make a deal. Wait, he just sent me the tape from Ferry’s office. Here, I’ll play it for you: “How does that fool Gilbert expect me to win a title without increasing payroll this season? I guess since I can’t increase payroll or add to the luxury tax I’ll just sit in my office and not even try to make a deal with anyone. But I’ll TELL all the local idiot scribes that I was working very hard to bring some more talent to this team and they’ll eat it up because they’re all idiots and they believe everything I say. And then, when someone gets hurt I’ll screw Gilbert by overpaying for somebody’s bought out trash player. Yeah, that will teach him to try to tell me how to build this team. Muhwahahaha!” Wow, can you believe that? I never imagined that from Ferry.
So, since O’neal, Camby, and Chandler were all so easy to obtain, where did they end up being traded? Because I’m sure if they were that easy to get and would be such a help to a playoff team that somebody must have traded for them, right?
Tom … huh? And Baffled, what in the world are you talking about? O’Neal was offered for free to Cleveland. Chandler was offered for free to Oklahoma City. Camby was offered for free to San Antonio. Free with respect to the dirth of talent they were to receive in return. The sole reasons the deals never got done is because the three franchises decided that taking on the added salary for future seasons wasn’t worth double the luxury tax on the future salaries.
I’m certainly no genius, but I wrote that Ferry would conduct a dog and pony show. And sure enough. And then he had an opportunity to dump somebody or two for a 2013 second-round pick, or whatever, to dump this season’s salary to take on a rental free-agent without adding luxury tax upon poor Gilbert. Instead, the guy is asleep at the wheel fantasizing about doing his pogo-stick dance in the Duke student section.
Like I said, if this happened at Rock/Quicken, Ferry would have been tossed out the door by Gilbert faster than you can say, “I can’t sell a mortgage if my life depended on it.” Ferry has the attention span and the business foresight of a moth. Put a Jughead goatee on him, and he’s Drew Gooden.
Let me rephrase with respect to Oklahoma City … there were additional reasons for getting cold feet, although ironically enough in this case, Chandler’s feet actually had nothing to do with it.
All of the NBA’s majority owners are hurting big time.
alan, will you please report to pat’s blog and talk some trash on the browns.
Oh, and “Baffled.” I’m now back online after a week break, so I just now happened to look at espn’s site. Bill Simmons evidently read your silly, silly post, you silly goose. Go over there, read his column, it will give you a dose of clarity. Excellent column. It’s the one entitled “No Benjamin’s Association,” or something like that.
Should “Benjamins” have an apostrophe? I don’t think so, I think I wrote it wrong. I’m not up with the hip lingo. I’ve heard of “dead presidents.” No apostrophe there.
alan – did ferry sleep with your mom/wife/girlfriend? your hostility towards him borders on insanity.
the cavs paid smith $3.5 million – double that with the tax burden. once snow’s contract is off the books due to the insurance claim, that should more or less wash out what they are paying by signing smith. they may take on a bit more in the end, but its worth it for another solid body.
Don’t think they already took Snow’s insurance claim into account months ago? It’s simply outrageous how badly Ferry screwed Gilbert.
After Wallace got hurt, it was deja vu all over again. Ferry realizing Shannon Brown sucked and Pavlovic was immediately needed, Ferry realizing the Cavs needed Varejao, Ferry giving every ounce of leverage to an agent. I’d feel sorry for that little guy Gilbert, but he’s the one whose raging ego wanted to buy the Brewers before his raging ego turned his sights on the Cavaliers.
$7 million extra for a traveling salesman like Smith? For a quarter of a year of work? Gilbert must be going absolutely nuts.
1. its not your problem, alan.
2. i can see your point if ferry made all these moves and gilbert was paying all this money for a mediocre team, but this is a legit championship caliber team regardless of what you want to believe.
3. assuming you are correct, all will likely be forgiven if the moves and money lead to winning a championship.
tom, I know Ferry’s bumbling is not my problem. That’s why I everybody not involved should be able to cringe and laugh at all these dunces.
He couldn’t accept Steve Kerr’s gift of Shaquille O’Neal because of Gilbert’s marching orders of no more spending. Then Wallace goes down after the trade deadline, causing this Fegan guy to have Ferry by the short hairs all over again. Thereby forcing Ferry to do a 180 degree on Gilbert’s marching orders all because Ferry failed to take simple precautions.
If there was $6 million available for the Cavaliers to spend instead of just $3.5 million, the agent could have compelled the Cavaliers to spend every penny of it. Ferry left himself with no leverage whatsoever.
Fegan must have been dancing in his underwear. He’s now two for two against Ferry. This one wasn’t even a fight, more like Mike Tyson creaming Michael Spinks in 91 seconds. I’m looking forward to this summer and the Varejao dealings, that will be very entertaining in a sadistic kind of way. I just hope and pray that Varejao’s parents have since changed the locks.
If Ferry was a high school kid, he’d be out there partying rubber-free. No sense whatsoever.
Hey Alan T-Man, get a real life. You have way too much time to post. And as for your ongoing criticisms of Ferry chew on this one: 48-12. I rest my case.
Alan, I appreciated the Bill Simmons’ article. It was a very interesting piece. But according to Simmons the Suns wanted Wally AND Sasha for Shaq? And you’re upset because Ferry didn’t jump at that deal? While I agree it would have greatly strengthened the Cavs’ low post presence, it would also have left them woefully shorthanded at the SG-SF position. I don’t think anyone would feel comfortable going into the playoffs with the backups at those positions being Tarence Kinsey, Daniel Gibson, and 3 rookies. Of course, they could always slide Z over to that SG-SF spot given his shooting range. It would definitely create some matchup problems for the opposition trying to guard a 7′2″ SG. Hmm, I’m guessing that was your plan Alan? I know how much you love the big guy and this would have given him a lot more looks in the offense. I’m sorry I ever doubted you Alan, please forgive me.
48-12? What’s that, his wife’s measurements? Ferry didn’t do it, James did. And then the salary-dumping Bucks did. Other than that, Ferry was at the right place at the right time. My neighbor’s cute granddaughter could have accomplished the same feat.
And I’m not riding Ferry here for being dumb, per se. I’m riding him because as a general manager, he has proven to be the worst chess and poker player with agents in all of Cleveland sports. The competition isn’t even close. He’d never last in a management job in the real world.
And come on, dumping Count Pavlovic leaves the Cavaliers “woefully shorthanded?” Pavlovic can’t even count his short hands without committing an offensive foul. When the playoffs come around, which is all that matters, Pavlovic won’t even be in the rotation, and Eyebrow Guy will be seeing a few minutes only if Gibson keeps clanging away with his three-point heaves.
It’s a shame Gilbert is hurting so badly, because with James and O’Neal in the same lineup, they would have been unstoppable in the playoffs on both ends of the floor. Take Chris Paul’s lobs to Chandler for dunks, multiply by 5. And if that wasn’t available, O’Neal is a great passer and could simply pass out to the wings.
They could have just handed James his first trophy right now, save everybody the time. And then hope Bob Costas didn’t come over to ABC and screw up in the locker room again by referring to Michael Jordan’s wife as his mother.
all your ranting and raving is baseless and makes no sense. since you dont read windhorst anymore, let me help you out. The cavs signed Joe Smith to a contract Thursday that will pay him $1.2 million for the final 22 games of the season. It will cost the Cavs $2.4 million with luxury-tax penalties and send their payroll (including taxes) to roughly $113 million. If the team receives a disability waiver for Eric Snow, the payroll will be closer to $100 million. The $1.2 million is equivalent to the veteran’s minimum salary for a season, but prorated it would have been $240,000. Instead, the Cavs agreed to pay Smith the full-season amount. It is similar to the contract Stephon Marbury signed with the Celtics last week.
snow’s disability waiver is the key as that is going to reduce the overall amount significantly. your theory that ferry got fleeced by dan fegan to save face in countless other “mistakes” doesnt hold much water considering the cavs gave smith essentially the same deal that the celtics gave marbury.
I know about Eric Snow, and so did everybody else within the organization. That’s why his contract is still on the payroll instead of being traded, as they could have and would have if winning a title was the priority as opposed to financial survival.
It just seems to me that they could have easily reduced payroll prior to the trade deadline so no additional luxury tax would have had to be paid. The apparent fact of the matter is that Ferry was left with his pants around his ankles, and was caught totally unprepared. You’d think that after almost four years on the job, Ferry would be experienced enough by now not to be left in that position. I think the fumes from Coach K’s toxic black hair dye has finally infiltrated Ferry’s brain.
Besides, whatever Windhorst prints, you really should know by now not to believe much of anything he writes. A college kid could have a field day writing a term paper on all of his factual inaccuracies since Windhorst first got out of Kent State. Call the Cleveland Public Library for copies of Windy’s stuff, they’ll tell you to come on in and visit the semi-fiction section. If the Plain Dealer had journalistic ethics, they would put a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of each of his pieces that says, “Based on a true story.”
alan – youre complaining about them not reducing salary to get out of luxury tax, and then complain that they didnt make the trade for shaq which would have only worsened their luxury tax this year AND next year??
how could they have “easily” reduced payroll to get below the luxury tax? they would have had to cut roughly $20million to do that. send ben wallace out for an expiring contract? good luck with that. buy wally out? thats pointless. give Z away for peanuts like NO tried to with with tyson chandler? pointless. trade mo williams away for an expiring contract? very pointless and flat out stupid.
the bottom line is the cavs have the #2 record in the nba, and are a legitimate championship caliber team. im sure dan gilbert is very touched by your concern over his financial situation. if he really is angry with ferry, im sure dan gilbert will be smart enough to deal with it on his own.
and what is the fiction in windhorst’s report about smith’s contract? do you have some inside info that smith actually signed for $5mill for the rest of the year, and the cavs have to now pay $10mill with the tax? did windhorst just make up those numbers for fun? or maybe windhorst made up the part about marbury’s contract being essentially the same as the one smith signed with the cavs?
I’m not “complaining” about anything, tom. It’s the remnants of what used to be Gilbert’s and his partners’ money, not mine. I just think it’s kinda funny, that they were doing anything and everything to prevent additional spending. Gilbert’s bread and butter during his salad days, the mortgage refinance business, is a corpse. And the funniest thing is, if Wallace didn’t go down after the trade deadline, Smith wouldn’t even be on the roster, all in the good name of “maintaining team chemistry.”
And yes, given his wacky beat-writing history of what turned out to be total factual inaccuracy, whenever Windhorst uses the two most evil words in his keyboard lexicon, the oh so nebulous “league source,” then the official Journalism Credibility Meter located in the hallowed halls of the Library of Congress explodes like Mt. Vesuvius over Pompeii. Pornographically, it’s as if John Holmes never died.
At least George, at least not yet, doesn’t repeatedly publish bogus stories and fabricated specifics manufactured by sources in the source’s own self-serving interests. That Robert Horry thing from his zany source was pretty off-the-wall, but I can live with that.
(rolling my eyes)
Rolling your eyes? What, tom, do you believe John Holmes is still alive, too? I’ve heard of Elvis sightings, but John Holmes schlong sightings? That’s a new one.