Cavaliers to re-sign J.R. Smith with 4-year, $57 million deal

ByABC News
October 14, 2016, 8:40 PM

— -- The Cleveland Cavaliers and J.R. Smith have reached agreement on a four-year, $57 million deal, sources told ESPN's Marc Stein on Friday.

The fourth year of the deal is not fully guaranteed, sources told ESPN's Brian Windhorst.

The deal kicks the Cavs' payroll to a record $125 million, and they are in line to pay around $30 million in luxury taxes. They paid a record $54 million in luxury taxes last season.

The Cavs and Smith had been in talks after the guard did not pick up his $5.3 million player option for the 2016-17 season in July. It made him an unrestricted free agent after he averaged 12.4 points, 2.8 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game and hit 204 3-pointers in 77 starts for Cleveland.

LeBron James had stumped for the two sides to come to a swift agreement two weeks ago as the reigning NBA champion Cavs kicked off training camp, calling Smith "a leader of a team and for me personally."

Smith became the fourth Cavs player in the past 10 years -- Anderson Varejao, Sasha Pavlovic and Tristan Thompson are the others -- to have contract negotiations bleed into training camp.

"We're saying that he is going to come back," Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said last month in the first week of training camp. "If he doesn't come back, we understand it's a business and we just have to move forward. No excuses. Next man up. Next man has to be ready. We have some great pieces around who can also step in and play a role for us on this team."

Information from ESPN's Dave McMenamin was used in this report.