Cleveland Cavaliers: Three potential Rodney Hood trade options
A potential Hood trade to the Kings
The Sacramento Kings had high hopes for Ben McLemore when they made him the seventh overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. It is hard to believe that McLemore is already in his sixth NBA season, five of those have been spent with the Kings, but he now does not appear to be a part of their future plans.
The guard position for the Kings is locked down by De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield, as well as Bogdan Bogdanovic and Iman Shumpert. With these four taking up so many minutes, McLemore would be better suited to play elsewhere.
This season, he’s averaging a career-low 8.3 minutes per game and scoring a career-worst 3.9 points per game. Once upon a time, McLemore started all 82 games for the Kings in his second season and averaged 12.1 points on 35.8 percent shooting from beyond the arc, per Basketball Reference.
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In today’s NBA, the hot commodity is having multiple athletic wings that can score the ball and create their own shot. Rodney Hood provides just that for an up-and-coming Kings team right in the thick of the Western Conference playoff picture.
Why do the Cavaliers make this trade? It gives them a young player on an expiring contract.
So if McLemore ends up working out, the Cavaliers can potentially re-sign him for a cheap amount. But if he ends up not working out, the Cavaliers let him walk at season’s end.
As of now, the Kings owning a Detroit Pistons’ second-round draft pick in 2020 could provide the Cavs with a developmental piece that could help the rotation within a few years.
They could use this pick to draft a young player with upside that could have been overlooked.
Cleveland is not necessarily looking for long-term talent, but more so acquiring draft picks for future use. That would be the case here if the Kings and Cavaliers made this deal for McLemore.