We get a lot of questions. From our comment section, from Twitter, from emails, from everywhere. And in the past – as evidenced in July with a Kevin Love trade explainer – we’ve compiled some of those questions into FAQ posts. Recently, we’ve been getting a bunch of questions about the Cleveland Cavaliers and their future payroll decisions. There are lot of players and roster decisions up in the air this summer, so it can be a difficult task to sort through all of the minutiae.

That’s why we’re here to help. This builds off previous posts about Kyrie Irving’s maximum contract and Brendan Haywood’s quirky deal, so those links also could be good 101 materials.

Q: So, can the Cavaliers even afford to keep possible free agent Kevin Love, given the max contracts to Kyrie Irving (guaranteed) and LeBron James (assumed)?

A: Yes, absolutely. By acquiring Love via trade with Minnesota, the Cavaliers also took on his very important Bird Rights. As Larry Coon writes in his CBA FAQ, “With very few exceptions, all salaries are included in team salary. The Bird exception simply enables a team to exceed the cap to sign certain players.” So while it might not seem possible at first for the Cavs to sign three players to maximum contracts, they’re afforded this possibility through this exception.

As a reminder, Kevin Love holds a $16,744,219 player option for the 2015-16 season. As a seven-year player, and given next year’s expected $67.1 million salary cap, a new maximum contract would start at about $18,960,174 in year one . This means that Love would make just over $2 million more next season by not using his player option and signing a new max deal, even of the one-year variety à la LeBron this past summer.

With Love at about $18.9 million, Kyrie Irving at about $15.8 million, and LeBron James at either $21.5 million or $22.1 million (depending upon his opt-out decision), that’s over $56 million for three players alone. That leaves less than $11 million more in “space” under the salary cap. This is what leads to the complicated salary math for every other player the Cavs might be able to retain heading into next season.

Q: Given those likely max salaries to the Big Three, what could the Cavs possibly offer the red-hot Tristan Thompson as a restricted free agent?

A: We all likely recall the January rumor that Tristan Thompson — and, of course, his agent Rich Paul — turned down a four-year $52 million offer from the Cavaliers last summer. As an incoming fourth-year NBA player, Thompson and the Cavs had a window from July 1 to Oct. 30 to negotiate a possible long-term contract extension. When midnight struck on Nov. 1 with no deal, Thompson was set to become a restricted free agent at the end of the 2014-15 season.

Now, after Thompson’s breakout playoff performance, the floor of a possible long-term contract is expected to be that four-year $52 million offer . The other important anchor is the approximately four-year, $67.5 million maximum offer sheet that another team could extend his way . One might recall how this played out with Utah and Charlotte over restricted free agent Gordon Hayward last summer when the Jazz had three days to match the Hornets’ max offer.

Of course, the Cavaliers could end up signing Tristan to a deal larger than that top offer sheet from another team. This is what happened with Golden State and fellow 2011 draftee Klay Thompson last summer with a four-year, $70 million deal that was not an offer sheet nor technically a maximum contract. Without any other indications, I’d currently expect some new contract for the Canadian forward at four years and in the mid-$60 million range.

Q: What’s up with Iman Shumpert’s future? Why again were the New York Knicks so eager to trade away him and J.R. Smith?

A: On the Knicks: They’re striving for as much cap space as possible this summer. Smith owns a $6.4 million player option for 2015-16 that, if used, could have prevented them from having maximum salary space. Thus, the Knicks were looking for any takers. Similar to the Cavs and desiring to dump Jarrett Jack’s $6.3 million contract, the price was a young versatile rotation player (Tyler Zeller in Cleveland’s case , Iman Shumpert in New York’s.)

With Tristan Thompson, the Cavaliers have a $6.8 million qualifying offer they could extend his way in some form. With Shumpert, selected 13 picks later in the 2011 first round, his qualifying offer is $3.7 million. Both offers are likely way off from the true market value of both players. I’d be very surprised to see what happened with Detroit and Greg Monroe with his signed qualifying offer happen with either of these two players.

Shumpert is a soon-to-be-25-year-old defensive stopper who has showcased impressive offense in these playoffs. Of all players on Cleveland’s roster, I’ve been most skeptical of the team’s ability to retain him long term. Conceivably, I could see perhaps a two-year $20 million deal. But some recent comparables might be Avery Bradley (four-year, $32 million extension with Boston) and Alec Burks (four-year, $42 million extension with Utah).

Q: All right, enough already. Give us some projections for those players above. Where does that leave the Cavs in 2015-16? Where would it leave them for future seasons?

A: Starting at the very beginning: The Cavs have only four players (!) with 100 percent guaranteed contracts for only $27.4 million next season. These four players are Kyrie Irving (start of rookie max extension), Anderson Varejao (signed to three-year, $30 million deal last summer), the No. 24 pick in this year’s first round (with guaranteed first-year slot), and Joe Harris (second-rounder last year). That’s it for totally guaranteed deals.

You’d certainly expect the Cavs to pick up Timofey Mozgov’s $4.95 million team option. That’s an absolute no-brainer. From there, LeBron, Love, J.R. Smith, and Mike Miller (possible retirement?) all have player option decisions to make. Tristan, Shumpert, and Matthew Dellavedova are restricted free agents with set qualifying offers. And Brendan Haywood has his quirky $10.5 million unguaranteed contract until July 31. This leads to a ton of uncertainty.

Using a Cavs salary spreadsheet scenario that I built, here”s a “default” setting, with Haywood’s contract set at “release” as the only change.

In this “default” setting, the Cavs are up to $91.5 million in 2015-16 salaries . They’re already over the cap apron (set $4 million over the tax line), preventing them from acquiring players in sign-and-trades and can only use a smaller mid-level exception. But major roster decisions still need to be made.

My predictions: LeBron opts out and re-signs new one-year max contracts in 2015 and 2016, then signs a long-term max in 2017; Love opts in and re-signs a new long-term max in 2016; Tristan signs a four-year, $67.5 million contract; Shumpert signs a two-year, $20 million contract; J.R. Smith picks up his $6.4 million player option; Dellavedova signs a two-year, $6 million contract; and Haywood is released because of further tax concerns.

Here is then the “predicted” setting in my Cavs salary spreadsheet and the future implications:

These changes brought the Cavaliers to $109.2 million in 2015-16 salaries. Using my CBA Tax Calculator and the tax line of $81.6 million, that then equates to a $77.4 million tax bill. That would rank shy of Brooklyn’s record $90.6 million tax bill last season. The Cavs would dip to a much lower tax bill in 2016-17, but would have decisions pending on Smith, Mozgov, and Mike Miller. With all of the long-term contracts in place, they’d still be over the cap in 2017-18 as well.

The crucial long-term reminder: Starting next season, NBA teams are subject to a far more rigorous “repeater” tax rate if they were over the tax line in at least three of the previous four seasons. The Cavs ended up slightly over the tax this season, according to Spotrac. So if the Cavs were to be in the tax for a third straight season in 2016-17, that could lead to very significant tax payment consequences in future seasons. Staying under the tax in 2017-18 would a very high priority.

Q: Anything else up in the air this summer or beyond that should be of potential fan concern?

A: On Matthew Dellavedova: While Tristan and Shumpert have undoubtedly increased their summer paydays during the playoffs, Delly is the long-forgotten restricted free agent. What would another team potentially offer him for backup point guard duties? He’s a guy you’d love to have play on your team but would hate to play against, as Chicago and Atlanta have discovered. I’ve got him pegged at two years and $6 million; but perhaps up to three years and $12 million could make some sense.

On Brendan Haywood: Just because the Cavs acquired his unusual contract doesn’t mean they actually have to use it in a trade this offseason. As I’ve written before, incoming salaries from a Haywood deal could carry a 300 percent tax rate. It could be an even larger tax rate given new deals for Tristan, Shumpert, etc. This reminds me of the LeBron trade exception: it’s OK to just let it expire! A trade for a flexible asset can still be worthwhile, even if not eventually used in that initial way.

On Timofey Mozgov: Now this is another 12 months into the future, but it’s likely to be a topic of conversation during the 2015-16 season. What should the Cavs do with Timo long term? His $4.95 million team option will certainly be a nice bargain for one year. But then he’ll turn 30 in July 2016. Marcin Gortat, another starting center oft-benched in fourth quarters, signed a five-year $60 million deal as a 30-year-old last summer. With a rising cap, will Mozgov get even more than that?