Ricky Rubio gave up millions of dollars in buyout agreement with Cavaliers

Veteran point guard Ricky Rubio gave up $5.4M in his buyout agreement with the Cavaliers, according to reports from Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, Keith Smith of Spotrac and Bobby Marks of ESPN.

That’s a significant portion of the remaining guaranteed money that was owed to Rubio, who initially had a guaranteed salary of $6,146,342 for 2023-24 and a $4,250,000 partial guarantee for 2024-25 (his full cap hit for next season would have been $6,439,025).

While Rubio had earned a prorated portion of this season’s salary, he was still owed about $3.5M in 2023-24, along with his $4.25M guarantee for next season, for a total of $7.75M. He’ll receive approximately $2.35M of that total, but the Cavaliers will recoup the rest, giving the team some extra cap flexibility this season and next.

As Marks notes, Rubio’s new cap hit this season is approximately $3.7M and he’ll be on Cleveland’s books for about $1.3M in 2024-25. The Cavaliers’ team salary this season had been about $752K below the luxury-tax line prior to the buyout, but that cushion has increased to approximately $3.2M, Marks adds.

That extra flexibility puts the Cavs in position to immediately sign one or two players to their roster to fill out their 15-man squad. Now that the 10-day contract window has opened, Cleveland may opt for short-term additions for now, maintaining some roster flexibility ahead of the trade deadline, but the team technically has enough breathing room below the tax to add two minimum-salary players for the rest of the season.

Since teams are only permitted to carry fewer than 14 players on standard contracts for up to two weeks at a time, Cleveland will have to make at least one roster addition by Jan. 18, two weeks after officially parting ways with Rubio.