Jerome is expected to get a significant pay increase after his incredible season.
The emergence of Cleveland Cavaliers reserve Ty Jerome is one of the more surprising stories in the league. Jerome transformed from being a back-of-the-roster depth player into being someone firmly in the Sixth Man of the Year conversation.
The Cavs simply wouldn’t be having as successful of a season if it wasn’t for Jerome’s emergence.
There are, however, concerns about whether the Cavaliers can retain Jerome’s services beyond this season. His contract expires after this season and Cleveland doesn’t have his Bird rights. The Cavs are currently under the luxury tax now, but that won’t be the case next season. This has all led to there being concern about whether or not they will be able to re-sign Jerome this off-season.
According to cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, the Cavs view Jerome as a ‘priority.’
“There will be plenty of motivation — on both sides — to get a deal done. As long as the Cavs can be competitive financially — and they can even with a bloated salary cap situation — Jerome sticking around seems to be a likely outcome.”
There will certainly be motivation on both sides to get a deal done. Jerome is having the best season of his career, he’s reunited with his best friend De’Andre Hunter, and the Cavs will want to keep their most productive bench player in town. Figuring out how to do that exactly will be an issue.
The Cavs don’t have Jerome’s Bird rights, which would let them go over the salary cap and luxury tax threshold to re-sign him. However, they do have his Early Bird rights due to him being on the team for two consecutive seasons.
Here is an explanation of what Early Bird rights are by Hoops Rumors:
The crucial difference between Bird rights and Early Bird rights involves the limitations on contract offers. Bird players can receive maximum-salary deals for up to five years, while the most a team can offer an Early Bird free agent without using cap space is 175% of his previous salary (up to the max) or 105% of the league-average salary in the previous season, whichever is greater.
Re-signing Jerome with 175% of his previous contract likely won’t be an option due to him making just $2.5 million annually on his current deal. This would come into play using 105% of the league average salary for this season.
The league average salary isn’t determined until July, The Cavs are expected to be able to give Jerome in the neighborhood of $11-13 million on the first year of his deal. They would be able to escalate the yearly amount year-over-year.
As it currently stands, the Cavs would not have the full-midlevel exception at the start of next off-season due to the increased salary for the players that are already under contract.
There’s a lot of basketball to be played between now and the off-season. In the meantime, reporting seems to indicate that the Cavs feel good about their chances of keeping Jerome in town.