Ty Lue says he considers Rodney Hood to be a big part of Cavs future

The Cleveland Cavaliers have faith in Rodney Hood and they consider him to be an important piece of their future.

Rehashing the saga of 25-year-old four-year pro Rodney Hood, the smooth lefty small forward from Meridian, Mississippi whose steady improvements as a playmaker for the playoff-contending Utah Jazz were readily available on film and on the stat sheet, is overkill.

But today it’ll be done again.

He’s been one of the bigger stories for the Cleveland Cavaliers through the postseason, after Cavs head coach Ty Lue reluctantly decided to start Hood in Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers in the midst of Kyle Korver’s lingering foot injury and didn’t hesitate to bench the proven scorer.

The crime that Hood committed?

He wasn’t aggressive enough, often standing in the corner waiting for LeBron James to find him open, and he wasn’t making enough of his catch-and-shoot threes. He finished the first game of his Cavs postseason career with 9 points, 1 assist (to 1 turnover) and 1 steal, going 4-8 from the field but 1-4 from three and 0-2 from the free-throw line.

Hood was truly a casualty of a horrible loss, as the Cavs lost the first game of the postseason 98-80.

However, starting Korver in his place as Lue seemed to always want to do, worked out for the Cavs. Their offense and defense were much more fluid, energetic and precise as Korver, James, George Hill, J.R. Smith and Kevin Love used their veteran savvy and chemistry to flummox the Pacers.

Hood scored 5.8 points per game on 45.2 percent shooting from the field but 12.5 percent shooting from three for the rest of the series while coming off the bench.

The latter number is all that mattered to NBA fans, given a focus on perimeter shooting and a stunning disregard for any points that aren’t from a trey-ball. It’s the only matter that seemed to matter to Lue too, though Hood often looked like “deer in the headlights” playing and his lack of assertiveness wasn’t pretty to see.

That Hood shot below 50.0 percent from the field in just one game of the opening round received less acknowledgement than it deserved.

Soon enough, after a rough 1-7 start from Hood in the Cavaliers first two games against the Toronto Raptors, The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd was so upset by Hood’s play that he asked Lue why he was still getting minutes.

Lue took Hood out of the rotation after he went 0-2 in the Game 3.

Keep in mind that Hood had only had 1 game with more than a single turnover at that point, that Love struggled mightily through the first round of the playoffs, that Hood was averaging 16.8 points per game just three months prior and that Hood had scored at least 10 points for the Cavs in 13 out of their 21 regular season games.

That there were five Cavs in the rotation who weren’t shooting at least 40.0 percent from the field, including three starters (Love, Smith and Korver) in the first round. That there were four Cavs in the rotation who had a lower scoring average in the first round.

Keep in mind that this is a player multiple rival players pegged to be a breakout star in Cleveland given their lack of perimeter playmaking, that general manager Koby Altman offered high praise after the trade deadline and that just had twins — his first kids — prior to the most important playoff run of his young life.

After that, Hood wasn’t heard from, just seen seething on bench and fighting his frustrations as he attempted to support his team from the sidelines.

Meanwhile, after an amazing Eastern Conference semifinals series that seemed to get everyone but Clarkson and Hood (who took 9 total shots in the series) in rhythm, to the dissatisfaction of Cavs fans (and possibly Lloyd in particular), there were three Cavs shooting below 40.0 percent from the field (Love, Smith and Clarkson) in the Eastern Conference Finals.

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People could criticize Hood all they wanted while he got himself into a rhythm against the Celtics (47.1 percent shooting from the field) but the argument against not playing Hood was more flimsy than it was when it started.

Especially when Clarkson has struggled in every round and both Love and Smith struggled to make anything inside the arc in these playoffs as well. When the energy and defensive effort has been missing from Love countless times this postseason.

There’s a thin line between rationality and sentimentality and Cavs Nation was playing border patrol to protect their favorite players’ feelings.

Now, as the Cavaliers struggle to find a player who can create plays for themselves (and be efficient in the NBA Finals), there’s been a call for Hood to save the day.

It’s almost as if everyone noticed that it might take time for him to get acclimated to the pressure of playing in the postseason when your team is led by James, the most polarizing athlete in America, or that the postseason seemed to affect the play of quite a few players.

He may not have earned the trust of the fans, teammates and coaching staff with his initial reactions to the playoff pressure but ignoring that it’s his first postseason with a championship contender and just his second postseason period would be to ignore that inexperience can rear its ugly head in the playoffs.

Like people forget the best way to battle inexperience is experience.

The issue with Hood was never talent.

For what it’s worth, Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue says that Hood is still a part of the team’s plans. Now, as they Cavaliers battle the Warriors in the Finals, and in the future.

Per Fear The Sword’s Chris Manning:

"“So we have confidence in him. He has to have more confidence in himself. And he’s going to be a big part of what we’re trying to do. So he’s not X’d out right now.”"

Hood is a restricted free agent but with the way the postseason played out, the offers he receives will possibly be matched by the Cavs if he doesn’t decide to accept a qualifying offer. Furthermore, whether James returns or not the team could use his perimeter playmaking.

If we let a player’s initial playoff shortcomings define their potential we would never have seen James become the player he’s been in the last seven NBA Finals given his supbar play in his first two Finals appearances. Another — but less extreme — example would be how Love has played in the last two Finals given his performance in the 2016 NBA Finals.

Even NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton, a nine-time All-Star who led his Seattle SuperSonics team to the 1996 NBA Finals (where he would face the iconic Michael Jordan), believes in Hood:

"“I told him, ‘You can play this game,'” Payton said, per Lee Jenkins of SI.com. “‘You’ve played this game your whole life. You have to stop thinking about all these other different things. You’ve got a guy on your team who can do anything, and if you get him to gain confidence in you, he’ll find you out there and you can knock those shots down just like you’ve always done.'”“What I want to know is, ‘What’s the problem?’” Payton wondered. “When a player like this plays like that, it’s almost always because he’s thinking about too much stuff. ‘Where will I be next year? Will I get a contract?’ You start doing that, you don’t play well for a while, you don’t score, you lose some in confidence in yourself and then everybody else loses confidence in you. It’s a bad cycle.”"

Players from Kevin Durant of the Warriors to Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard C.J. McCollum to NBA veteran Joe Johnson have either talked up Hood’s game or been an advocate for him receiving regular playing time.

These are three players who either are or were deadly scorers in the league, so their evaluation of Hood’s talents should hold significant weight. Everyone criticized James recruiting Jeff Green until he was dunking on people’s heads and scoring 19 points in Game 7 of an Eastern Conference Finals game in place of a concussed Love.

Basketball minds see basketball players as well.. players. Not just data sets or an AI. There are human elements to the game that can’t be ignored or truly quantified, like pressure, off-court stress and inexperience.

Those things that might have effected your favorite player and given you a reason to excuse his stretch of struggles.

It’s smart for the Cavaliers to not give up on Hood given his potential. Now Hood has to take his next opportunity to turn his potential into production and run with it.

*All stats gathered by www.basketball-reference.com