It was quite the Sunday for Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome.
Jerome burned the Heat for 28 points off the bench, including 16 in the fourth quarter, in the Cavaliers’ 121-100 win in Game 1 of the first round of the NBA playoffs. Just a half-hour before tipoff, he was named a finalist for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award. It was Jerome’s first career playoff game.
“He’s done it all year,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said in his postgame press conference of Jerome’s performance. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Yes Jerome has done it all year, albeit on one of the cheapest contracts in the NBA for a 27-year-old, six-year veteran.
Jerome had a career season in Cleveland, averaging 12.5 points off the bench while shooting 52% from the field and 44% from 3. His 87% free throw mark is what cost him a 50-40-90 season, a rare accolade that mostly belongs to legends such as Steve Nash and Kevin Durant.
He’s on a two-year, $5 million contract that pays just $2.5 million annually. His salary makes him the 359th highest-paid player in a league of 496 this season, according to HoopsHype.
How The Cavs Saved Ty Jerome’s Career
Jerome owes Atkinson an assist for rejuvenating his career.
The New Rochelle, New York native played three seasons at Virginia where he helped lead those Cavaliers to the 2019 NCAA title. He was drafted 24th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Sixers, who immediately shipped him to the Suns, where he played his rookie year. In November 2020, he was a throw-in as part of the trade that sent Chris Paul from the Thunder to the Suns.
Jerome battled injuries during his two seasons in Oklahoma City, but showed flashes of the player he is today. He averaged 10.7 points on 45 percent shooting and 42% from 3 during the COVID-shortened 2020-2021 season, not far off from his numbers this year.
But the Thunder were in the prime of their tank job and Jerome wasn’t irreplaceable like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. In September 2022, he was traded to the Rockets in an eight-player deal and waived a day later. A week later, he signed a two-way contract with the Warriors for the 2022 to 2023 season.
Enter Atkinson.
The exiled Nets coach was an assistant on Steve Kerr’s staff, giving him a close-up look at Jerome, who played 45 games that year for the Warriors and shot 93 percent from the free throw line.
“He’s just got supreme confidence in himself,” Atkinson said Sunday. “And he’s got swagger right? And then he’s got the IQ. Super high IQ.”
Jerome signed his two-year, $5 million deal before the 2023 to 2024 season, a year before Atkinson took the reins. Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman, a Brooklyn native, had been a fan of Jerome since he watched him in middle school when Altman was an assistant at Columbia. The deal also reunited him with star guard Donovan Mitchell, who first played with Jerome when they were eight years old.
An ankle injury limited him to just two games last season, but Atkinson kept him around when he got the Cavs job. Jerome went into this season in the last year of his super team-friendly contract knowing the implications it had for his career.
“Going into the offseason, your back’s kind of against the wall,” Jerome said. “You don’t play any games. I don’t really have a huge body of work in the NBA. And you kind of have one last shot, in a way, to make it right.”
Jerome’s contract has been arguably the best bargain for the Eastern Conference’s top-seed. The Cavaliers went 64–18 during the regular season with Jerome emerging as the team’s sharpshooter off the bench.
Jerome is hitting free agency this summer in his prime, coming off a career year, with the NBA salary cap increasing. If he wants to stay in Cleveland, he might have to take a discount. The 6-foot-5 guard has less than $16 million in career earnings, according to Spotrac, and has a chance to nearly double that amount this offseason. The Cavaliers are currently not a luxury tax team, but will be next season due to extensions to Mitchell and Evan Mobley kicking in, which will put them in apron territory.
The Cavs don’t have Jerome’s Bird Rights, named after Celtics’ legend Larry Bird, which allow teams to go over the tax to re-sign their own free agents who have been with them for three-plus seasons. The team does have his Early Bird Rights, since he’s been on the team for two seasons, which means Jerome can re-sign for up to 175% of his contract this year, which is a non-starter given the $2.5 million he’s earning or 105% of the year’s leaguewide average player salary, which is around $12 million.
That’s likely where both sides will start on for a new deal.
Jerome could command the full mid-level exception, which would be around $14 million per season, but teams with the cap space to offer him that, such as the Nets and Wizards, are currently rebuilding, which is why he might not be a fit.
For now, Jerome will be a key part of the Cavs’ title chase while awaiting his fate on the Sixth Man of the Year award. Even if he doesn’t win that, he still gets another title for this season: the league’s best bargain.
