Magic deal F Frye to Cavaliers

The Cavs will send Anderson Varejao with a conditional first-round pick to Portland. Both Varejao and Cunningham are reportedly expected to be waived.

Varejao’s vital contributions during Cavs superstar LeBron James’ first stint in Cleveland allowed him to sign the contract extension in November 2014 in the first place.

The second of those two remaining years on Varejao’s contract, however, is only partially guaranteed in 2017-18 for $4.5 million of the full $10 milion he’s scheduled to earn. The power forward has averaged 5.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 0.5 blocks per game so far this season. With a pair of big floor-spacers in Love and the newly acquired Frye, Cleveland now has the look of a truly complete team. The Magic would prefer that so they don’t have to take back any salary. Does “bigger” mean exhausting all options for Anderson and Gay, or trying to orchestrate a three-team trade? They can stretch that money over five years, however, still giving them an enormous amount of cap space as the salary cap balloons the next two summers.

While Harris has been solid during his four-year stint in Orlando, his scoring numbers had decreased from last year to this year. Taking on Frye ($8.2M) and dumping Varejao ($9.7M) and Cunningham ($981K) lowers Cleveland’s payroll number by roughly $2.5 million and generates an actual savings of more than $10 million because the Cavaliers are significantly over the luxury tax threshold.

Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin dreaded making this phone call.

Unless the Cavs reduce the minutes of struggling backup center Timofey Mozgov, which could happen, Frye’s role ultimately won’t be much greater in Cleveland than Varejao’s was.

Reigning Eastern Conference champion Cleveland added three-point sharpshooter Channing Frye while the Los Angeles Clippers landed forward Jeff Green in deals Thursday at the National Basketball Association trade deadline. Channing Frye and Love play the same position, they could possibly co-exist with Frye coming off the bench but you already have Tristan Thompson coming off in the reserve forward spot.

KEVIN LOVE: The Cavaliers forward has heard his name in trade rumours for much of the season, but James shot those down in Toronto during all-star weekend, and it remains unlikely he is moved on Thursday.

“We envision that he’s going to be a complementary piece”, Griffin said.

“He’s a floor-spacing shooter”, Griffin said.

That’s not to say their rotation players are unavailable, but it seems like the Cavaliers would need a no-brainer offer to do so and that just doesn’t seem very likely.