This is probably a dumb question, but if traded can Rubio be brought back next year? I recall a rule change preventing that a few years ago, but maybe I'm making stuff up. This year's important, but I'm much more interested in maximizing next year's team than this one. I want Rubio back.
Rubio signed as a street free agent with the Suns in 2019. That means he will have earned his full Bird Rights with the Cavs this offseason.
There are three roads here with Cleveland.
The Cavs can trade him now in some kind of deal where he is salary ballast and hope to resign him in the offseason.
The Cavs can renounce his rights ( flushing his Bird Rights and resetting his Bird clock) and resign him
The Cavs can resign him without renouncing him thus keeping his full Bird Rights.
The benefit of full Bird Rights is you can over the salary cap to resign the player. This is how the Warriors have kept that core together for so long and part of the reason why they were able to carve out enough cap space to sign Kevin Durant as a free agent.
The first scenario, the other team will hold his full Bird Rights. This would create a limitation on the Cavs is they are in a salary crunch and want to have Rubio on their roster. They need to have enough open cap space to sign him if it's any contract above the Veteran's Minimum ( the DVE)
The 2nd scenario seems kind of nonsensical on it's face and it only works for a situation like Frank Ntilikina and the Knicks. The French Prince was a pretty mediocre player and the Knicks weren't going to sign him to a long term extension after his rookie deal and they weren't going to pay him his qualifying offer for his 5th year in the league (something nutty like 9 million) Renouncing him would flush his full Bird Rights ( which he earned after his third full season in the league) but allow the Knicks to not be locked into a qualifying offer sheet situation. They could then just sign him as a street free agent for the veteran's minimum. The market would be so bare for The French Prince where that might have been his only option to stay in the league ( He ended up in Dallas)
The status of your Bird Rights is a huge deal for these players. Julius Randle was allowed to walk from the Lakers. His Bird Rights clock reset. That means the Pelicans got him as a street free agent. But he left the Pelicans after one year because they weren't going to resign him to a long term deal, thus his Bird Rights clock reset again. When he signed a long term deal with the Knicks, he did so after his 2nd year with them, so he could only sign under Early Bird Rights conditions and not full Bird Rights conditions. The difference is an extra year and lots of money. Had Randle signed with the Knicks instead of the Pelicans, he would have been in his third season and reearned his full Bird Rights timed with his best season ever.
It's better to be traded to a new team than to sign there as a street free agent. Kevin Durant was traded to the Nets from the Warriors because those full Bird Rights were very valuable in terms of cap management for Brooklyn. It's how the Warriors got DLo and how DLo turned into Wiggins and Kuminga. GSW got those two useful and valuable players for essentially the value of Durant's full Bird Rights.
So if the Cavs trade Rubio this week, his new team holds his full Bird Rights. In order for Cleveland to resign him, they can go to a sign and trade with that team ( unlikely) or they can hope that team renounces the rights to Rubio.
Why does a team renounce a player? It removes the "cap hold" that player represents on the salary cap. Frank Ntilikina represented a cap hold of something like 9 million last offseason on the Knicks roster and total cap sheet. That means the Knicks can't spend that money until they make a decision him. Resign him or cut him loose to the open market. The purpose of this is to prevent "cash rich" teams like the Knicks to sign a crap load of expensive free agents, then fill their cap space, then sign all their own free agents with Bird Rights to go over the cap because they can afford the luxury and repeater tax.
The "cap hold" is a mechanism to prevent a team like the Knicks from outspending it's financial leverage to an advantage that a team like the Kings or the Hawks don't have.
There are three general rules with inseason trading. You can't trade guys you've signed to consecutive one year deals. The Knicks couldn't trade Elfrid Payton without his consent last year. The OKC Thunder couldn't trade Nerlens Noel when they signed him to another one year deal before he signed with the Knicks. You can't trade a free agent you signed that offseason before the trade deadline. The Knicks could trade Kevin Knox anytime they wanted this year, but they can't trade Evan Fournier until just recently at the mark of this years deadline. You can't trade as "lending" You can't trade with a team and then later exchange those two same players again for each other in the same year. If Team A needs a 3rd string center and Team B needs a third string PG, you can't trade those guys, to fill some roster holes, then trade them again for each other to get back to your original roster. IIRC, there is a full league calendar year turnaround time stamp required to move the same players for each other later.