The Cavaliers naturally still badly want to re-sign LeBron \u2014 for all of this week\u2019s mounting talk about a second stint for King James on South Beach \u2014 and remain hopeful that the 41-year-old Akron native will choose a third marriage with Cleveland over the Heat, Warriors and Philadelphia 76ers.<\/p>\n
The expectation thus naturally persists that the Cavaliers, like the Joe Lacob-owned Warriors, will hold off on doing anything else until it is confirmed that James\u2019 second homecoming is out of reach.<\/p>\n
That said \u2026<\/p>\n
League sources maintain that the Cavaliers are among the teams that have registered interest in former No. 5 overall pick Mario Hezonja. The Real Madrid forward has made it clear that he wants to return to the NBA after playing in Europe for the past six seasons and the last four in the Spanish capital. So add Hezonja\u2019s name to the list of potential fallback options for Cleveland along with Hawks free agent Jonathan Kuminga.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think,\u201d said one trusted source, \u201cthat we\u2019re going to see eight or nine players sign right after LeBron makes his choice. Maybe more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of Kuminga \u2026<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll need help from Atlanta on a sign-and-trade to come anywhere close to last season\u2019s $22.5 million salary, but the latest indications we\u2019ve received suggest that the Hawks are likely to be pretty choosy when it comes to sign and-trade scenarios they\u2019re willing to accept.<\/p>\n
Kuminga, meanwhile, is said to be open to an Atlanta return on a short-term deal. The Hawks, though, appear pretty deep at the wing positions after their trade Sunday to acquire Lu Dort from Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cavaliers naturally still badly want to re-sign LeBron \u2014 for all of this week\u2019s mounting talk about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[398778,64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-825333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-atlanta-hawks-trade-rumors","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}