Cavs likely to sign Luke Kornet, Justin Anderson via hardship exceptions

On Sunday, the Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly had five players test positive for COVID-19 and head into the NBA’s health and safety protocols as a result. Those players were Jarrett Allen, Lamar Stevens, Dylan Windler, Denzel Valentine and two-way contributor RJ Nembhard.

Not surprisingly, also with Evan Mobley and Isaac Okoro already in COVID-19 protocols, and given the limitations among available bodies and the concerns in general with Cleveland’s outbreak, their game at the Atlanta Hawks was postponed.

There were several other games postponed by the league on Sunday as well, given the tons of players and team staff that has reportedly entered health and safety protocols throughout this past week/weekend.

In any case, from the Cavs’ perspective, it only seemed to be a matter of time before they would make a hardship exception signing given their situation. We’ll have to see if Cleveland could potentially have other games postponed regarding next week, but at least for now, they’ll have an added body.

Per a report from Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, the Cavaliers are expected to sign Luke Kornet via the 10-day hardship exception, and the same goes for Justin Anderson.

This season, the 7-foot Kornet has been playing for the Maine Celtics, the G League affiliate for the Boston Celtics. He has had other stints in recent seasons with the New York Knicks (his first two years), then the Chicago Bulls and appeared occasionally with Boston this past season.

In relation to Anderson, he’s had stints with the Dallas Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers and then made some appearances with the Atlanta Hawks in 2018-19. Then he played in 10 games sparingly with the Brooklyn Nets the following season. This season, he’s played with the Indiana Pacers’ G League affiliate, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

The point is though, there isn’t much to this signing.

One shouldn’t expect much from these Cavs signings, provided they’re granted, but they were for a bit of immediate depth.

Neither of these guys are notable signings, as is the case with 10-day hardship exception signings, which are temporary 10-day spots that allow a team to be over the max of 15 players, when a club has at least four players that are injured or sick for more than two weeks.

With four players needing to be sick or injured for at least three consecutive games during a two-week span, Cleveland needed some added depth, and clearly, to have over the player minimum anyhow.

Plus, based on this recent report from Charania yesterday, with the Cavs having seven players currently in protocols, they needed to add a couple of players. And they will need to add one more replacement player as well with them having four or more players test positive for COVID-19 (through Jan. 19).

We’ll keep an eye out for reports involving the other potential hardship exception add for the Cavs. Regarding Kornet, he’s had 11.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 2.6 blocks in 10 G League games with Maine so far this season, and for Cleveland, the 7-foot-2, 250-pound big could provide some rim protection in spurts.

Kornet has shown some flashes of stretch big qualities in his bench minutes in the league, and could be a pick-and-pop threat in some instances with Darius Garland/Ricky Rubio, and perhaps we could see that in coming weeks. I wouldn’t be expecting that with much volume, however; Kornet is not the presence of Kevin Love or Dean Wade in that regard, clearly, but could provide some catch-and-shoot play in stretches here and there.

In the 6-foot-6, 228-pound Anderson’s case, he’s had 14.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 11 games with Fort Wayne thus far this G League season, and has knocked in 36.4 from three on 7.0 attempts per contest from there.

He’ll feasibly get some playing time at the 2 and/or 3 as a decent wing defender at 6-foot-6, and although it hasn’t materialized much in meaningful NBA minutes at times, I’d imagine he’ll have catch-and-shoot chances, also, with Cleveland’s depleted group.

To reiterate, though, one shouldn’t be looking for a whole lot from these two signings, but realistically, the Cavs are far from the only club dealing with protocols absences.