The Cleveland Cavaliers have been involved in a lot of trade talks in the past week, and the majority of them involve Brendan Haywood. Right now the Cavaliers are using Haywood as a trade chip to try to acquire a scoring guard. They have been linked to Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford, and any trade that would end with a guard in Cleveland would most likely mean Haywood is on his way out.
Haywood, despite only playing 119 minutes last season, is a very valuable asset right now. The reason he is so valuable is because he has a non-guaranteed contract worth $10.5 million, so the Cavaliers could use that money in a deal to make the numbers work salary-wise. If the Cavaliers were to make a trade involving Haywood they will still be spending a ton of money to the tune of around $200 million when you factor in salaries and luxury tax.
The amount of teams interested in Haywood has gone up in recent days. Now the Los Angeles Lakers, the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Clippers are interested in the big fella, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports. Amico also reported that the Cavaliers are no longer trying to trade Varejao so a deal for Johnson now officially seems like it's off the table.
The Lakers, Suns and Clippers would likely all have to give up a good player to get Haywood, and what they would get out of it is cap relief. The Lakers reported trade chip in this deal is Nick Young.
Things have to happen in this Haywood deal fairly soon, though, as his contract becomes guaranteed on Aug. 1, according to NBC Sports, so whichever team acquires him has to release him by July 31 if they want to save all of that money. There was speculation that Haywood would retire if he was cut immediately after being traded, but that has since been put to rest by Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
