The Cavs traded player exception isn’t as good as we thought

This, unfortunately, won’t be a useful tool in upgrading the roster.

The Cleveland Cavaliers received a traded player exception in their deal with the Chicago Bulls that swapped Isaac Okoro for Lonzo Ball. Yesterday, it was reported and written by me that the exception was for $11 million. Today, it has been clarified by Keith Smith that Cleveland has only a $1 million traded player exception.

A traded player exception is created when a team trades a player with more salary for one with less or no salary at all. Cleveland did that when they sent out Okoro — who is set to make $11 million this upcoming season — for Lonzo Ball and his $10 million deal.

This difference would mean that the Cavs would have a traded player exception of $1 million.

The confusion came from an injured-player clause in Ball’s contract that would’ve allowed a team to trade him as if his salary were $0. This, in theory, would’ve created an $11 million trade exception. That reading of the contract was incorrect.

So, where does that leave the Cavs?

A trade exception like this allows a team to acquire someone who makes as much or less than their exception in a trade as long as they didn’t send out a player of their own. That would’ve been beneficial if you could acquire a player a team is trying to salary dump who is making $11 million or more.

Since the exception is for $1 million, the Cavs could only acquire a player making that much or less in a deal. And unfortunately for Cleveland, no players would fit into that exception as the minimum contract for a player with no years of service time for the upcoming season is $1,361,969.

In short, this is essentially worthless for the Cavs.

The CBA is confusing. Even the experts get things wrong. But at least we all learned something about traded player exceptions along the way.