Cleveland Cavaliers waive Rayjon Tucker, as expected

The Cleveland Cavaliers have reportedly waived Rayjon Tucker.

On Friday, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Utah Jazz agreed to a trade which involved Utah sending guard Rayjon Tucker and a future second-round pick in exchange for cash considerations from Cleveland.

Tucker, who was a G League standout mostly for the Milwaukee Bucks G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd, last season was signed by Utah via two-year minimum contract early on in 2019-20. Tucker played sparingly with Utah in 20 games last year, but in 16 appearances for the Herd, had 23.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists per outing.

That move put the Cavs, at that moment, at a maximum of 15 rostered players.

That said, early on after Cleveland acquired Tucker, it appeared likely that he’d be waived soon. And that was on-script with them doing so on Saturday, per a report from The Athletic‘s Kelsey Russo.

The Cavs reportedly waived Tucker on Saturday, as expected.

This move was to be expected, based on these two reports from Friday, per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor and ESPN’s Bobby Marks.

Fedor noted how Tucker has a Nov. 29 guarantee for his deal, but how that wouldn’t be guaranteed, albeit he state how “the two sides could work to amend the date.” From there, Marks hit on how Cleveland essentially acquired a future 2, of which is reportedly set to convey in 2027, for that guaranteed number, of which he stated was for $340,000 (of $1.5 million).

For further context, Fedor in a report referencing this aforementioned Cavs-Jazz trade centered on Tucker, said how “Tucker is likely to be waived before Nov. 29,” so again, as expected, the Cavaliers ended up doing so.

As Fedor also referenced, though, if both sides “could work on amending the guarantee date over the next few days, which would allow Tucker to compete for one of the Cavs’ final roster spots in training camp.”

Perhaps Tucker does end up being invited to training camp/potentially end up being offered an Exhibit 10 deal, such as was the case with Charles Matthews.

In any case, for the Cleveland Cavaliers, that trade on Friday with Utah was all about the Cavs/general manager Koby Altman adding another future draft asset. Do we know exactly what there is to expect with a 2027 second-round pick?

No, of course not, but future draft assets are nice to have for potential trades/if teams are looking to add other first-round picks in-draft in the near future, such as when Cleveland previously traded out four second-round picks and cash to the Detroit Pistons during the 2019 draft for Kevin Porter Jr.

That was via the Milwaukee Bucks to Detroit initially, but regardless, the Cavs were able to have sweeteners to add in a deal, to further drive home how important it is for clubs like Cleveland to have future assets/a stockpile of draft capital. It’s also just a savvy move by Altman/Cleveland to acquire a future second-rounder for basically “$340K,” as Marks demonstrated in that above tweet.

Maybe Tucker does end up having a legitimate NBA future, at any rate. Perhaps he ends up developing more with Cleveland’s G League affiliate, the Canton Charge, next season, if there is a G League campaign.

Albeit on the Cavs, he’d be hard-pressed for any minutes outside of garbage time factoring in the likes of Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Porter and Dylan Windler/Damyean Dotson. So to reiterate, this waiving of Tucker was clearly expected after the deal initially went down on Friday, with that Nov. 29 guarantee date for him.

But again for the Wine and Gold to keep adding more future draft capital for sub-$350K, that was a heady move by Altman and company.