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The Cleveland Cavaliers have traded for Spencer Hawes. Just two days after we saw Tyler Zeller destroy Hawes and Grantland writer Zach Lowe called Hawes' performance against the Cavs "a masterpiece of not giving a fuck," Cleveland makes a trade for him.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports first reported the deal. The Cavs will give up 2 second round draft picks in exchange for Hawes.
Philadelphia will receive two second round picks from Cavs for Hawes, league source tells Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) February 20, 2014
I do not know why the Cavs are making this deal. Spencer Hawes is averaging good numbers this season, 13 points and 8.5 rebounds with a PER of 15.4. But the raw stats are a bit inflated due to the Sixers playing at the fastest pace in the NBA. The one nice thing that Hawes provides is spacing. He's shooting 38.6% from three point range over the last two seasons. It's nice to have a big man that can shoot the ball like that.
But other than that, this trade doesn't make sense. First of all, it seems extremely unlikely that the Cavs only gave up 2 second round picks for Hawes because that trade doesn't work according to the CBA. Hawes makes $6.5m this year (and is an expiring contract) and the Cavs don't have cap room to simply absorb his deal. They'll have to be sending something to Philadelphia, but we don't know what that would be yet. My best guess is Gee and Clark for Hawes.
UPDATE: It is being widely reported that Earl Clark will be sent to the 76ers. It sounds like Henry Sims is the other guy heading the Philly.
I'll be very interested to hear David Griffin's rationale for making this deal, but you have to figure that other moves will be on the way. It's nice to get a backup center that can shoot the ball, but unless Anderson Varejao's injury is more serious than they initially thought, the front court just gets a little crowded. All in all, it's not a terrible deal. After all, giving up two second rounders isn't a big deal. I just want to know why.