This trade goes to show what Cleveland and New Orleans can do to improve their rosters after my last proposed trade. It’s simply a proof of concept to show that there are indeed deals out there to open up Cleveland’s salary cap and their would be suitors for CJ’s contract if NO decided they didn’t want Mitchell and CJ on the same roster. That original trade can be viewed here: https://fanspo.com/nba/s/cavaliers/trades/C0hAILd-Kt2ky1/cleveland-goes-young-new-orleans-gets-superstar-to-help-zion

A few more points on NO. Their starting 5 would be Mitchell, Strus, Herb, Zion and Markkanen. They would finally have that stretch 5 they so desperately need. They’re cool with trading Nance here as Jonas would now fill his role off the bench. This trade makes the Pels real title contenders.

As I said in my last trade, if Cleveland traded for BI, they would want the cap space to resign him and Mobley. This trade allows them to do just that. They would have the best young team in the Eastern Conference after this move. Id expect them to use young prospect Craig Porter Jr in the short term as their backup PG. In the long term, they would most likely draft someone.

As far as the other three teams are concerned: This proposal does allow Philly enough cap space to re-sign Maxey to a max level contract. To me, this is the best deal Miami can expect for Butler, this gets him off their books and lands them three 1sts (Philly could send more picks if this isn’t enough). As far as the Jazz are concerned, they wanted three firsts for Markkanen, this accomplishes that for them and they get CJ’s expiring contract which could be valuable to another team.