The Cavaliers’ Trade Talks With The Kings About George Hill Are ‘At The One Yard Line’

The Cavaliers are dominating NBA headlines for all the wrong reasons in January. The team is 3-6 this month (3-9 in the last 12) and the infighting in the locker room has gone from passive aggressive quotes to the media to full blown finger-pointing in a tense team meeting on Monday night.

In short, things aren’t going well in Cleveland and the front office is now tasked with trying to make the right moves to fix the many problems this roster has before the Feb. 8 trade deadline. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst went on The Jump on Tuesday and made it known that the Cavs are very active on the trade market to try and shake things up, including being deep in talks to land George Hill from the Kings.

Windhorst’s colleague Adrian Wojnarowski confirmed that the two sides are having serious trade talks, with the Cavs looking to send a pair of lesser contracts to Sacramento for the disgruntled point guard (and likely picks to be involved as well).

George Hill is a very good offensive point guard, but as Windhorst and Rachel Nichols note on The Jump, he’s been dismal on defense this year and that’s what the Cavs’ biggest issue has been. However, if they can land Hill for Frye and Shumpert and a second round pick, that might be worthwhile to see if he can return to form from his time in Utah.

Hill makes $20 million this season, with a contract that descends in value to $19 million next year and $18 million (non-guaranteed) in 2019-20. Frye and Shumpert’s contracts combined make the money work as they come close to $18 million, although the Kings would certainly want at least something in the way of future assets from the Cavs.

However, things might be a bit more complicated than a three player deal, as Jason Jones from the Sacramento Bee notes the Kings, at 15 players on the roster currently, want to unload a few more contracts.

The Kings have a bit of a frontcourt logjam on the roster and could look to unload someone like Georgios Papagiannis and then likely waive Frye whose deal is expiring. Marc Stein of the New York Times reports draft compensation is indeed being discussed, with the Kings getting something back in return in the proposed deal on that front.

Windhorst later went on ESPN Radio in Cleveland and noted Derrick Rose could be tacked on to a deal.

That would make sense in combination with the report that the Kings wanted to move multiple players, as the Cavs would need to send more money to the Kings to make cap space work and Rose’s expiring minimum deal would be another buyout candidate for the Kings.