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Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

The Cleveland Cavaliers may be Eastern Conference champions, but after the NBA Finals, it’s clear they need to do something to get past the Golden State Warriors.

However, they are heavily limited by what they can do because of the salary cap. According to Spotrac, they have $127,998,668 in committed salaries, which puts them $8,998,668 over the luxury-tax threshold.

That means they can only use the taxpayer mid-level exception for $5,192,000, which isn’t going to go far when most teams are below the cap. According to cap guru Albert Nahmad at HeatHoops.com, there are only five other teams which can’t generate cap space if they wanted to.

The Cavaliers have also ended their relationship with David Griffin, the general manager who helped build the champs in 2016. That bothered LeBron James, which has raised speculation that the King could be on his way out of Cleveland in the summer of 2018.

That also makes it more difficult to recruit stars.

When we talk about a "successful" free-agency period for the Cavaliers, we have a low bar.