This season, the Cavaliers are shipping Rodney Hood out of town to help build for the future as part of a rebuild to eventually hope to win another championship.
Cleveland traded the 6'8 swingman to the Portland Trail Blazers for two players that might just need playing time and two second-round picks as part of the getting something rather than nothing program.
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Hood wasn't going to be part of the future, at least in what turned out to be the 2018-19 season results and it only made sense to move Hood along.
Hood turned out to be a disappointment in the 17-18 playoffs for Cleveland as he averaged only five points a game and had a few celebrated attitude issues that included refusing to enter a game in the fourth quarter as only the contract status of Hood managed to keep the player and the team together for another season.
Despite decent numbers on a bad Cavalier team this season, Hood wasn't seen as a franchise building block and was likely to walk away at the end of the season.
The return was mainly about the pair of second rounders (Portland's 21 and 23) that are obtained for future assets far more than the two players obtained.
Second rounders rarely provide helpful players, but they often are helpful in trades as filler in larger trades.
As for the players, both were one-time first-round draft picks and both never lived up to that level.
Nik Stauskas was once a lottery pick for the Sacramento Kings (8th overall) in 2014 out of Michigan, where he was the Big 10 player of the year as a sophomore, but the 6'6 shooting guard has never managed to average double figures in seasons with four teams (Sacramento, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Portland) and has never shown potential to be any more than a three-point shooter off the bench.
Stauskas does shoot the three well (34 percent) and he might be the type of bargain that could turn out to at least receive minutes on a bad team.
Stauskas will be a free agent at the end of the year, so if the Cavaliers don't care for his game, they could let him walk, but at the same time, he has a chance to impress enough to earn a new contract.
Wade Baldwin is another player that are high reward and low risk and the Cavaliers aren't hurting themselves when they add players like Stauskas and Baldwin.
Baldwin was a first rounder (17th overall) by Memphis in 2016 from Vanderbilt after his sophomore season, but after two and a half years in the league and two teams, Baldwin has only played in 56 games over that period of time.
The 6'2 point guard was playing only six minutes a game when he did play for Portland, but the intriguing things about Baldwin are these-He is still only 22 and when he was sent to the G League, Baldwin has played very well in the minors.
That gives me some hope that Baldwin could turn out to be another player that might thrive playing as a backup to Collin Sexton on a crummy team and could earn himself a contract for 2019-20 with a strong finish,
Baldwin is, like Stauskas, a free agent at the end of the season and if he doesn't play to the Cavaliers liking, could easily be allowed to walk away.
I like this deal.
Second rounders are a more valuable commodity to trade than use and the Cavaliers added two more to a stockpile acquired this season (The Cavaliers have added six second rounders from other teams) with two players that might need time to develop after both spent only two years in college with little investment in either player should they decide to keep or cut bait.
The Cavaliers likely aren't finished before tomorrow's trade deadline, so I'll be back when more deals warrant.
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