The Cavaliers will be able to give Jerome a competitive offer.
Ty Jerome was the hero of the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ Game 1 win over the Miami Heat. He scored 16 points in the fourth quarter to help put the game away.
While impressive, Jerome’s performance wasn’t all that surprising. He’s been doing things like this all season. It’s why he was recently named a finalist for Sixth Man of the Year. That steady string of good play sets Jerome up for a nice payday this offseason when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
The Cavs don’t have Jerome’s Bird rights since he only signed a two-year deal with the team in 2023. You need to be with an organization for three seasons or be traded from a team that already had that player’s Bird rights to have those.
That means that the Cavs aren’t able to go over the cap to re-sign him the way they were able to do this past summer for Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen. This is important since the Cavs are well over the salary cap and will be for the foreseeable future.
The Cavs do, however, have Jerome’s Early Bird rights. This allows the Cavs to exceed the salary cap to sign a player to either 175% of their previous salary or 105% of the league-average salary from the previous season. The team with the Early Bird rights can use either method that is greater. Additionally, you can’t sign someone to a one-year deal when you have their Early Bird rights as a workaround to getting their Bird rights.
Since Jerome is making just over $2.5 million this year, using 175% of that salary wasn’t going to be a competitive offer. Cleveland’s only option was to sign him by offering 105% of the league average salary from the previous season, which isn’t known until the end of the regular season.
ESPN NBA cap expert Bobby Marks posted on X that the Cavs can offer Jerome a maximum amount of $14.3 million for next season.
$14.3M
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) April 21, 2025
That number is in line with the projections for the non-taxpayer mid-level exception for next season of $14.1 million. Cleveland’s maximum offer would be better than what teams trying to sign Jerome with their full midlevel exception could provide.
That leaves the few teams projected to have cap space this summer as competition. As it stands, that would be just the Brooklyn Nets, Utah Jazz, and Detroit Pistons.
The Nets and Jazz likely won’t have any interest in Jerome. They both are rebuilding and trying to accumulate draft picks. Signing a veteran guard who is in the middle of his prime doesn’t exactly fit with that goal.
The Pistons would be a logical fit. They desperately need additional ball handlers to surround Cade Cunningham with. That was on display in their recent Game 1 loss to the New York Knicks. There’s also a familiarity between Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and Jerome. Bickerstaff was at the helm in Cleveland when Jerome initially signed.
However, just because Jerome fits into what the Pistons need doesn’t mean that they would pursue him with their cap space. They might want to keep that open so that they could more easily make a trade for a star player or try to plug multiple holes in free agency.
We don’t exactly know what Jerome’s top priorities are this summer, even though signs point to him being willing to extend in Cleveland. Maybe he wants to be a guaranteed starter. Maybe he wants to secure the most money possible. Those would both be understandable goals for someone who was on a two-way deal just a couple years ago.
We’ll see how things look when free agency comes around. A lot can change between now and then. What we do know is that retaining Jerome will be a priority for the Cavs, and they can make a competitive offer compared with most other teams.