C.J. Miles

C.J. Miles
SG/SF, 6’6, 225lbs, 30 years old, 12 years of experience

Again bounced between the shooting guard and power forward positions, starting at both spots at various times while also backing up the small forward spot. Wherever he played, Miles was effective with minimal, efficient dribbles, spotting up from beyond the arc better than ever (41.3% three-point shooting) and defending adequately wherever he lay. Miles is an excellent role player, who has been one for a long time, and who has declined his player option for next summer. This was the correct decision. Go get paid.

Player Plan: Also entering unrestricted free agency, meriting a big pay increase on his most recent $4,583,450 contract on account of his two-way play, flexibility and reliability. Every bit as good as Danny Green and should be paid like him.

Cleveland - Andrew Bynum, C.J. Miles, Matthew Dellavedova and Henry Sims: Dellavedova has played well in a third string point guard role and will surely survive. Miles may only be the best of a poor bunch at small forward, yet it will cost only about $1.3 million to keep him, an acceptable amount for a team with playoff ambitions. Sims may get cut considering that he will spend much of his time under contract on assignment in the D-League anyway, although he is ever improving and may stick. As for Bynum, he may be traded first, but waived anyway.

That leaves Utah and Houston as pre-deadline projected tax payers. And as of today, both still are. Utah saved a little bit of 2010/11 tax when they made the Deron Williams deal, but they were still $4,907,732 over it in the aftermath, and never made another deal. Rumours of Raja Bell to Minnesota went nowhere - the Timberwolves presumably realising just in time that they don't need 34 year old veterans for the stretch run when they have only 13 wins - and players like C.J. Miles and Andrei Kirilenko were not moved to cut costs. Strangely, neither was Ronnie Price; his $1,321,250 salary was not enough to get the Jazz under the tax, but a simple trade him and cash to a team with cap space, as predicted way back when, would have saved them that much again in luxury tax. Alas, it did not happen. And I'm not sure why.

Utah vowed not to pay tax last year, and went to significant lengths to avoid it, dumping draft pick Eric Maynor and trading Ronnie Brewer in a valiant yet futile attempt to get under it. They will attempt to get under it again, and that resolve might be reinforced by last year's near-miss. As described here, trading C.J. Miles would be one way to approach this, but C.J. is too good of a player to be sacrificed unnecessarily.

Unguaranteed or partially guaranteed final seasons are becoming quite the trend in the NBA, and they are quickly replacing team options. In fact, there are only 11 team options in the entire league, belonging to Chase Budinger, Jermaine Taylor, Andrew Bynum, Sam Young, Andres Nocioni, Hakim Warrick, Goran Dragic, Pooh Jeter, Francisco Garcia, Solomon Alabi and C.J. Miles. In contrast, there are so many partially or fully unguaranteed contracts in future years that I can't be bothered to go through and list them all. And considering the length of this post, and all the things I could be bothered to do, that should signify something.

The teams projected to be over the $70,307,000 luxury tax threshold in 2010 include Boston ($77.8 million, assuming Sheed got nothing), Dallas ($84.5 million), Denver $83.8 million), Houston ($73.6 million after the Trevor Ariza/Courtney Lee trade), the L.A. Lakers ($91.9 million before Shannon Brown), Orlando ($92.6 million), Portland ($72.8 million) and Utah ($75.3 million). Some of those teams will never get under the tax threshold, and some of them won't try. But some will, and even those that don't make it will probably pawn off excess salary onto the teams with cap space they're otherwise struggling to use. Here are some such dumps that I'm officially predicting, apart from the ones that I'm not.

4) C.J. Miles, or Ronnie Price, or both

- In spite of it all, Utah are still over the tax. Trying to get under it has cost them Ronnie Brewer, Eric Maynor and Wesley Matthews, and yet they're still $5 million over it. To get under it this year, they could dump the above two, yet Miles is a good two-way player on a decidedly reasonable contract. They don't want to just have to dump him. Doing so would leave only Othyus Jeffers and Raja Bell at the two guard spot, which isn't really sufficient, and it'd mean losing a young contributor. Even if they get a first round pick for him, it'll smart. But if there's another way to get under the tax, I don't see it. As much as it might be preferable to trade Andrei Kirilenko somewhere - especially since he's bolting for New Jersey next offseason - it won't be easy. $17.8 million contracts are not easy to deal. This, then, puts Miles on the hot seat.

The only question is how much of a priority Utah puts on dodging the luxury tax. Based on last year, it's quite a lot.

[B]y not getting under the luxury tax despite trimming so much salary, Utah fails. Close, but close wasn't enough. Since it's the kind of thing I like to wonder about, I wonder if there were avenues available to them to do so that they just deemed to be too far. For example, OKC and Presti were the ones who gave C.J. Miles that contract in the first place; is there no conceivable way in which Utah could have palmed him off there, even if it's only for Kyle Weaver? Just thinking out loud here. Maybe they decided dumping three rotation players just to save money was too much to justify. But whatever the reason they had for not getting under the tax - be it by choice, or because they couldn't get it done - Utah know that it's possible to dump a good player on an average salary and pick up a comparable player for the minimum. They know this because they've done it, and so if they could have done it one more time with this Miles to OKC deal, then perhaps they should have.

The counter argument to that says that, if C.J. Miles is so readily replaceable with a cheaper player, then OKC could just pick up the cheaper player instead should they need to. That counter argument makes a valid point. And so perhaps that answers my own question as to the viability of a Miles-to-OKC deal. (The fact that the Thunder have acquired Thabo Sefolosha and James Harden since that offer sheet was signed is also not insiginificant. Oklahoma City no longer have a place for Miles.)