Cavs are doing all they can to keep up in the East, but is adding Peyton Watson enough?

Following the Cleveland Cavaliers’ swift and painful Eastern Conference finals exit at the hands of the eventual champion New York Knicks, an awkward offseason cloud hung eerily in the atmosphere. Not only was there a strong sense of doubt as to whether that iteration of the team could return to that stage from a basketball standpoint, but its future altogether was in question. 

Three months later, at least one of those questions has been answered. Donovan Mitchell committed his future to the franchise, signing a four-year, $273 million extension. His running mate, James Harden, agreed to a three-year, $97 million fully guaranteed contract Thursday, sources told Yahoo Sports. And as of Wednesday night, another reinforcement arrived. 

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In the latest installment of the “Anything but the Knicks” campaign, the Cavaliers reportedly acquired restricted free-agent wing Peyton Watson in a sign-and-trade deal involving the Nuggets and Clippers. Sharpshooter Max Strus was sent to L.A.. and a 2031 unprotected first along with a 2032 second-rounder headed to Denver. Upon joining Cleveland, Watson will sign a four-year, $88 million contract. 

(According to sources close to Harden, the veteran, having seen how rival teams in the conference had beefed up, is fully onboard with Watson’s arrival and decided to delay his negotiations to give Cleveland the opportunity to upgrade its scoring and defense — while also keen to avoid a previous situation with the Clippers with non-guaranteed money on just a two-year deal.)

We’ll get into what this all means for Cleveland shortly, but I can’t quite grasp how fascinating this is from a Nuggets perspective. Typically, restricted free agents don’t hold much leverage over their incumbent teams when it comes to negotiations (see Jalen Duren, Bennedict Mathurin, Tari Eason, the list goes on). But how and why Watson’s situation played out differently is worth mentioning. The whispers of the 23-year-old’s unhappiness with how Denver valued him, believing he should have been on par with teammate Christan Braun (earning $25 million annually) grew louder as the offseason dragged…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/cavs-are-doing-all-they-can-to-keep-up-in-the-east-but-is-adding-peyton-watson-enough-192756079.html

Author : Kelly Iko

Publish date : 2026-08-20 19:27:00

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