The Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly won’t be buying out guard J.R. Smith, who they could not move before the NBA trade deadline today at 3 P.M.
J.R. Smith has not been actively with the Cleveland Cavaliers in a while. As Bleacher Report’s Joseph Zucker noted, Smith has not been played since Nov. 19, which was a loss to the Detroit Pistons. Smith is still on Cleveland, but is not actively with the team, and a league source told Marla Ridenour of the Akron Beacon Journal (h/t the aforementioned Zucker), there “will be no buyout discussions” with Smith.
On the season, Smith’s averaged 6.7 points on just 41.8 percent effective field goal shooting and 1.9 assists in 20.2 minutes per game in 11 outings, per NBA.com. Although he hasn’t been playing much this year, it would seem that some teams might be interested in trading for Smith near in the summer, though, given his contract structure, as Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor detailed today.
"“In the 2019-20 season, the final year of his deal, Smith’s contract is worth $15.6 million, but contains a partial guarantee of $3.8 million. That allows whichever team trades for him — if there is one willing to do so — to get some potential salary cap relief. This vision is similar to Cleveland’s trade with the Houston Rockets, where they took on Brandon Knight’s bulky salary — a chance to revive his career — and received a first-round pick as a sweetener.”"
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It would have been nice to trade Smith near the deadline today, but Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Koby Altman doing that would have been really, really difficult, to say the least. Smith has not played in the NBA since that previously mentioned pre-Thanksgiving date.
With that being said, the Cavs trading him in the offseason would seem to be a reasonable option, with the way his contract is set up, as Fedor explained.
Smith is a player that can be effective as a three-point shooter off the bench, anyhow, if a team is looking for that sort of thing in the short-term, as for his career, he’s shot 37.3 percent from deep and is 12th all-time in three-pointers made, per Basketball Reference.
At minimum, the potential cap relief, as Fedor hit on, for other teams when it comes to acquiring Smith in the offseason could make him a somewhat attractive trade target.
Of course, nothing’s ever simple with Smith, so we’ll what happens in regards to Altman and company.