The Milwaukee Bucks extended a very generous offer to former Cleveland Cavaliers guard Matthew Dellavedova today: $38.4 million over four years. (Remember that the salary cap has skyrocketed by about $24 million this year.)
Dellavedova was a restricted free agent, so the Cavs had an opportunity to match the offer. Before any reporters definitively confirmed the Cavs would not match it, though, LeBron James posted the following tweet.
Congrats to my brother! @matthewdelly on his deal! Â Good luck in Milwaukee! Very deserving to you and your family. 1
This could mean one of three things:
1. LeBron had spoken to the Cavs and knew the higher-ups had decided not to match the offer.
2. He jumped the gun and didn't know Delly is a restricted free agent.
3. LeBron just decided his team would not pay that money for a league average backup point guard.
Naturally, this led to the classic "LeBron James is the Cavs' real General Manager" tweets.
@KingJames @matthewdelly LMAO GM Lebron has spoken
@KingJames @matthewdelly So you guys aren't matching I guess
@KingJames @matthewdelly Lol Lebron just dropped the mic on Delly in Cleveland. They're not going to match after LBJ says bye. Haha.
@KingJames @matthewdelly this means Lebron will not match the qualifying offer, not David griffin or Dan Gilbert but Lebron decides this
@KingJames @ThompsonScribe @matthewdelly Good job on not offering Delly & Mozgov contracts, GM LeBron! Who'll be your new FA max players?
@KingJames lol so I guess this is Lebrons way of telling Dan Gilbert and David Griffin he doesn't want us to match the offer on July 7th 😂
For what it's worth, James also congratulated his former teammate Timofey Mozgov on signing with the Lakers earlier in the afternoon.
Congrats to my brother Big fella Mozzie on the deal with the Lakers!! Enjoy LA. Dinner on you
Based on LeBron's incredible championship parade speech, in which he said he'd trust Dellavedova to out-fight a bear for a rebound, it'd be reasonable to believe King James really does like Delly.
Dellavedova averaged 7.7 minutes per game in the NBA Finals and did not appear in the iconic Game 7. Perhaps his biggest contribution in the series was smacking Andre Iguodala in the groin.
Shout out to Delly for landing this deal, though. It certainly puts his Panera Bread money to shame.
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