Few athletes have had a month stranger than the one Patrick McCaw just had.
On Wednesday, the Toronto Raptors announced that they were signing the former Golden State Warrior to a deal that will last the rest of the season. It was the end of a bizarre saga that involved a half-season holdout, an offer sheet, a surprising release, and an ongoing investigation by the NBA into how it all went down.
Before the season, McCaw was expected to have a sizable role in the Warriors rotation as they prepared to transition from veterans like Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala. Even after an underwhelming second season that also included a gruesome injury involving Vince Carter, decent rotation minutes were all but guaranteed for the versatile wing.
But the former second-round pick was a restricted free agent. Golden State extended a qualifying offer, but McCaw decided instead to hold out for a better deal — ideally one in which he could become an unrestricted free agent at the end.
In December, after he had held out for half the season, the Cleveland Cavaliers extended an offer sheet to McCaw. It was a two-year, non-guaranteed deal worth $3 million per year, which the Warriors chose not to match. He signed the sheet on Dec. 28 and officially became a member of the Cavs.
That’s when things got really strange. McCaw played three games with Cleveland, averaging 1.7 points per game in 17.7 minutes. Then, just before his deal would have become guaranteed, the Cavaliers abruptly cut him. He cleared waivers and became an unrestricted free agent.
Suspicions immediately arose around Cleveland’s motivation behind signing a player from the team that beat them in three of four NBA Finals, then releasing him almost immediately. While the Cavaliers followed all the rules, and can argue McCaw played poorly in what they viewed as an audition before his contract became guaranteed, it wasn’t hard to find the circumstances a bit fishy.
The Warrior filed a request with the NBA to investigate whether the transactions qualified as salary-cap circumvention. The New York Times reported that the league granted the request, although league executives are skeptical of any punishment being handed out, according to ESPN.
Toronto is McCaw’s home now, at least until the end of the season. Under the terms of the deal, McCaw will make the minimum salary (less than he would have made had he stayed with Golden State). He also will, once again, be a restricted free agent in the summer of 2019.
So at the end of the day, the only thing McCaw accomplished was escaping a team that has won three of the last four NBA championships. And he isn’t likely to play any more in Toronto than he would have in Golden State. The Raptors are deep at the guard position and on the wing, whereas the Warriors are uncharacteristically thin at those positions after moving on from Nick Young.
It all adds up to a strange chapter in this year’s NBA season, exposing a loophole in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that says offer sheets don’t have to be guaranteed. It could be changed in the future, but the damage is done. The Warriors lost a young asset, that young asset lost money and playing time, and the Cavaliers have added a league investigation to an already depressing season.