Why Rodney Hood should sign his qualifying offer

Rodney Hood’s best bet as a restricted free agent could be betting on himself and an impressive season with the Cleveland Cavaliers next year.

Rodney Hood has a dilemma.

As a restricted free agent without any team — besides the Sacramento Kings — having enough cap room to offer a contract large enough for the Cleveland Cavaliers to even hesitate to match, Hood finds himself hoping against hope that the Cavs front office will suddenly budge on a contract offer he’s unsatisfied with.

While the details of that potential deal are unknown, what is known is that Hood wants to be paid like a top-tier talent.

The problem for Hood, however, isn’t his talent.

There aren’t many knowledgeable people who question whether or not he can make a significant impact on a team or whether he’ll look more like he did in Utah once he returns to a LeBron James-less Cleveland.

As many have pointed out, from NBA scouts (per Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz) to beat writers like cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon, the real problem for Hood is a perception that may not be mentally tough.

On the one hand, he’s shown he can hit game-winners and has shown-out in a prove-it game against one of the best teams in NBA history while on the NBA’s biggest stage.

A clutch performer.

On the other hand, he shown his frustrations by slapping a phone out of a fan’s hands and refusing to enter a game because he was given “garbage time” minutes.

He’s admitted to struggling with the championship-or-bust expectations early in the 2018 postseason (per Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated):

"“The basketball stuff has been the easiest part. The stuff that comes out of it, you lose a game and everyone talks about it on TV the next day. They may say some things that you may not agree with. If you win a game, you’re supposed to. Those kind of things are something I kind of got on a much smaller scale and dealt with at Duke.“You lose a game and you feel like the world is coming down. You win, it’s like, you’re supposed to win. It’s still a struggle to me to adapt to that.”"

Hood’s mental toughness, if it ever could be measured, likely falls somewhere in-between the two extremes. However, there’s no way to really know right now and thus, no way to correctly gauge his value.

He may unlock his potential as a perimeter playmaker and put his troubles behind him, consistently playing like the lottery pick he should have been.

He could also stagnate and remain at this level for years.

All of these questions play a factor in why he’s not being offered what he wants by the Cavs and frankly, it’s fair. Right now he’s an enigmatic a player.

Consequently, to get the offer he wants, his best bet could be to sign the one-year qualifying offer and prove his doubters wrong in order to attract more suitors and better offers next offseason.

There’s the perfect storm brewing in Cleveland to make it happen too.

A team without LeBron is trying to make the playoffs, giving Hood the opportunity to show he can be a featured player on a playoff-contender.

Without LeBron, another wing player, there’s a gigantic void in the playmaking corps and it’s one that Hood should have every opportunity to help fill.

Hood was averaging a career-high 16.8 points per game as one of the top-two playmakers with the Utah Jazz last season.

He’ll get a similar opportunity in Cleveland with rookie Collin Sexton still working on his outside game and learning how to adapt to the speed of NBA players.

The biggest key for Hood would be improving his efficiency.

With a career shooting percentage of 41.9 (42.9 percent last season) but a career three-point percentage of 36.9 (38.1 percent last season) and a career free-throw percentage of 82.8 (86.0 percent last season), it’s obvious that Hood has a nice shooting stroke.

Shooting 62.1 percent from 0-3 feet for his career (65.8 percent last season), Hood’s finishing around the rim isn’t the issue either.

His shot selection is.

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For his career, 25.7 percent of his shots (30.6 percent last season) have come from the midrange and long twos (10 feet away from the rim to the three-point line).

He’s been relatively efficient from those areas, shooting 42.7 percent from the 10-16 feet away from the rim for his career (43.0 percent last season) and 41.0 percent on long twos (42.2 percent last season).

However, shots around the rim and from three-point range are thought to be the easiest shots in the league and though 45.6 percent of Hood’s shots have come from three for his career (44.3 percent last season), only 11.4 percent of his shots have come from around the rim (10.1 percent last season).

That’s the problem. He’s not taking the easiest shots.

Part of the reason is because Hood isn’t the smoothest ball-handler or most athletic slasher, so he has to get crafty and be timely to get to the rim consistently.

This is perhaps why he has the unorthodox method of backing down his matchup starting from the midrange area. It helps him get to the rim where he can use his length and touch for an easy two, ideally.

The cadence with which he gets to the rim allows this to count as an isolation attempt, a play type in which Hood scored 1.20 points per possession last season (95th percentile).

Nonetheless, the pick-and-roll (0.92 points per possession (79th percentile) last season) will be Hood’s best opportunity to get to the rim. He’s smooth and long enough to get glide to rim if he gets the proper angle and even if he doesn’t convert, he’ll get plenty of free-throw opportunities if he’s aggressive enough.

Add in timely cuts and more fastbreak finishes on what should be a faster-pacesetter team next season and Hood could be looking at shooting at least 45.0 from the field for the first time in his career. The uptick in efficiency and free-throw attempts could add at least another 3-5 points to the 16.8 points per game he averaged for the Jazz prior to the 2018 trade deadline.

20.0 points per game on 45.0 percent shooting for a playoff-contender should earn anyone a nice paycheck. Especially if they’re answering questions about their mental toughness by helping lead their team to the playoffs.

*Unless otherwise referenced, all stats gathered from www.basketball-reference.com