Should cap-crunched Cavs, roster-crunched Celtics swap 2020 firsts?

The Celtics have a roster crunch and the Cavs want to avoid the luxury tax – and a deal to swap the No. 5 pick for picks Nos. 14, 26 and 30 could help them both.

The Boston Celtics have reached out to potential trade partners to offer their three 2020 first round draft picks ahead of the November 18th event according to Forbes SportsMoney’s Evan Dammerall.

But, for those among us coveting the Cleveland Cavaliers’ No. 5 pick, the Forbes analyst doesn’t support the move.

In what is widely seen as a flat but talented — if not exceptionally so — draft, Dammerall’s issue is a sound one.

As these things often end up doing, his logic relates to where the team is at in terms of development and cap space — and despite the fact that Cleveland is rebuilding, they have less cap space to work with than you might think.

Dammerall notes the Cavs will be close to the projected $132 million luxury tax line if the franchise uses their full mid-level exception (MLE) if center Andre Drummond opts into the last season of his current deal.

The estimated $9.8 million for the full MLE plus the $5.6 million estimated salary a No. 5 pick would earn would have the team about $5 million shy of the luxury tax, something any non-contending team ought to avoid.

But if the Cavs made Boston’s back-up plan for what they’ll likely do if they can’t get a team to take their picks in exchange for something useful, it actually makes for a way to save money for Cleveland.

It’s widely assumed the Celtics have no plans to use all their first round draft picks given their status as a likely taxpaying team and having too few roster spots to fit three rookies without making moves.

The most popular way among analysts to solve that problem would be to use at least one of the picks to stash a player overseas.

In such a scenario for the Cavs, splitting the No. 5 pick into three would actually create less of a cap hit for Cleveland — considerably less if they took a big swing.

Suggestions for the Celtics to take Serbian forward Aleksej Pokusevski 14th for his upside as much as his salary hit at the end of the lottery would remove just over $3 million in guaranteed salary.

That would leave just picks Nos. 26 and 30 for a combined $3.5 million in guaranteed salary next season.

If they instead went the route proposed by many mock drafts, taking wing Leandro Bolmaro or a similar stashable prospect, the guaranteed salary would be about $4.7 million.

Compared to the $5.6 million the Cavs would be on the hook for at pick No. 5, they could save anywhere from about a million dollars in salary to more than twice that using such a strategy.

Moreover, unlike Boston — with designs on contention — Cleveland has much less pressing needs when it comes to maximizing draft assets.

While these sort of trades are rare in draft history, this one seems to make sense for both sides, at least in the framework we are proposing.

But don’t get your hopes up, as there’s a host of other directions both clubs could go to get to similar ends.

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