If Kevin Love is being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, it’s not happening until late August at the earliest.
The Cleveland Cavaliers announced they have formally signed Andrew Wiggins to his rookie contract. This was expected to come this week.
This is a standard No. 1 pick rookie deal, which starts at $5.5 million. The Cavaliers (or whatever team has his rights) can offer an extension after his third season but it would not kick in until his fifth — he will play at least four years on rookie scale.
Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining agreement once a player signs his deal he cannot be traded for 30 days. That doesn’t mean the two sides cannot continue to talk or even come to an agreement, but nothing can be executed.
Wiggins has been at the heart of trade talks between the Cavaliers and Timberwolves that would send Love to Cleveland for a package that would include Wiggins, Anthony Bennett (or maybe Dion Waiters), at least one future first round pick and maybe some other pieces. The trade likely will be more involved than that, with the Cavaliers taking on Kevin Martin or J.J. Barea’s contract as well and sending expiring deals back to Minnesota. Working out the exact form of the deal has been part of the issue in why talks have dragged out.
Still, multiple reports have said the Cavaliers’ Wiggins offer is the best and leading offer right now, but the Cavaliers can use the next 30 days or longer to leverage a deal. The Chicago Bulls have tried to get in a deal and Minnesota President Flip Saunders has tried to leverage Klay Thompson out of Golden State, but to no avail. (Love has some leverage here as he doesn’t have to re-sign where he is traded, teams that cannot keep him wouldn’t give up as many quality assets to get Love.)
Wiggins told ProBasketballTalk at Summer League he’s just trying to keep his head down through all of this.
“I let my agent and my support system handle that, I just love playing the game of basketball and I know the NBA is a business…” Wiggins said. “ I just play basketball man wherever I go.”
The Cavaliers also signed second-round pick Joe Harris to a contract Thursday, a three-year, $2.3 million deal with the first two years fully guaranteed, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.