Cleveland Cavaliers' Plan With Ty Jerome in Free Agency Revealed

In the wake of the news that Darius Garland will likely be sidelined to start the 2025-26 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers have serious questions at point guard. That's because Ty Jerome, a Sixth Man of the Year Candidate and staple on Cleveland's bench last season, is an unrestricted free agent this summer and, based on his play last season, could become too expensive for the Cavaliers to re-sign.

According to recent reports from ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps, Jerome is expected to command the full midlevel exception this summer, worth roughly $14.1 million. That's a huge, well-deserved pay increase for Jerome, who only made $2.5 million last season. But, for the Cavaliers, it isn't something they can match right now.

That's because of several financial hurdles Cleveland is trying to navigate. The first is the fact that the Cavaliers are over the second luxury tax apron under the current NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). That CBA status means that Cleveland doesn't have the ability to use its mid-level exception to re-sign Jerome and instead gives its competitors ample opportunity to steal away Cleveland's star sixth man.

The second is that the Cavaliers don't have Jerome's bird rights since they signed him to a two-year deal in July 2023. Bird rights allows teams to re-sign their own free agents, often at a higher salary, even if it means exceeding the salary cap. If Cleveland had Jerome's bird rights, then their problem would be solved. Unfortunately, since they don't, the path toward re-signing Jerome becomes even more difficult.

So, how do the Cavaliers fix this? Well, it'll require some tough decisions with players like Dean Wade and Isaac Okoro to shed salary to get out of the CBA's second apron. Once they do that, they'll have more financial flexibility and, more importantly, ways to re-sign Jerome to a long-term deal.

In the same report Windhorst and Bontemps also shared that the Cavaliers hope they can re-sign Jerome to a deal that's worth less than this summer's full mid-level exception. If they can do that, then it will give Cleveland financial flexibility to make decisions elsewhere. It'll be tricky but there's a way for the Cavaliers to keep Jerome and maintain stability at point guard.