No.
Kevin Durant isn't coming to Cleveland. Nor is Dwyane Wade or any other big name unrestricted Free Agent. Even with the massive increase in the salary cap, the Cavs are still over the limit and won't be major players in Free Agency.
Fear The Sword just released a nice breakdown of the Cavs current contract players, as well as who they will resign from the team. Some highlights:
Presently the Cavaliers have eight players under contract for next season:
Kevin Love, $21.2 million
Kyrie Irving, $17.6 million
Tristan Thompson, $15.3 million
Iman Shumpert, $9.7 million
Channing Frye, $7.8 million
Mo Williams, $2.2 million
Sasha Kaun, $1.3 million
Jordan McRae, $900,000That's a total of $76 million committed for next season, which is technically $18 million under the projected salary cap of $94 million. However, that cap space is merely an illusion because when LeBron signs a new contract that total committed salary will jump to at least $103 million.
We don't have Bird Rights on LBJ, so he will sign a 1+1 that will be worth about $27.5m next season. He is doing this to become the first $200m pro basketball player and also the highest paid player in league history by 2020. Windy had a nice breakdown on ESPN.
So that brings us to Free Agency and the Traded Player Exceptions the Cavs have from Haywood (reduced to $2.4m and set to expire at the end of July) Miller ($3m), and AV ($9.6m) that I believe total somewhere near $15m. That basically means the Cavs can take up to $15m from teams and not have to give near matching salaries in return. The TPE is Cleveland's only chance to improve.
So Kevin Durant, how does he impact the Cavs? I believe he is going to stay in OKC but for the sake of my forum post, let's say he decides to head to San Antonio to team with Leonard and Aldridge. The Spurs will need to off load salary and the Cavs are one of few teams who have TPEs that can help the Spurs. The likely casualties on the Spurs roster would be Danny Green ($10m) and Boris Diaw ($7m).
Basically the Cavs can help the Spurs by simply taking two pretty damn good role players off their hands for maybe Mo Williams. Assuming that they resign Delly or Kay Felder can prove a worthy back up, that is a very small price to pay.
As mentioned, they have rights to Kay Felder and Cedi Osman to help fill the roster.
They also hold the Taxpayer Mid Level Exception worth $3.5m that they can use on an aging vet who wants a shot at the title.
Even if Durant stays in OKC, there will be enough shuffling of rosters and need to clear cap space that the Cavs will definitely be involved in FA to help another team clear roster space.
Here's to Durant becoming a Spur!