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Rodney Hood had a fairly disastrous second-half stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, culminating in his refusal to come off the bench in garbage time in the playoffs. Hood, who was likely eyeing a big payday this summer as he entered restricted free agency, has clearly found the market to be cold.
Given the negativity surrounding the end of Hood’s year, it would make a degree of sense that the Cleveland Cavaliers would just want to move on from Hood. Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com is reporting that this isn’t the case.
The Cavs also extended a $3.4 million qualifying offer to their own free agent, Rodney Hood, which means they can match any offer Hood receives on the open market.
A team source said Hood, 25, remained in the team’s plans -- a strong indication the team would match any offer he gets. In the past two days, restricted free agents Marcus Smart (four-year, $52 million with Boston) and Montrezl Harrell (two years, $12 million with the Clippers) signed new deals with their old teams.
From an asset management standpoint, this is smart. Hood’s still young, and an icy summer for restricted free agents with most teams capped out has been a pretty ideal situation for the Cavaliers to land themselves in.
Hood clearly hasn’t gotten any offers from other teams that he would consider signing, and after the Kings recent splurge on Nemanja Bjelica and Yogi Farrell, it doesn’t appear that one is coming. Now things get tricky for the Cavaliers. If they’re true to their word and want Hood around for the future, they’re going to have to offer him enough to get him to sign long term instead of taking his qualifying offer to enter true free agency.
The risk that can be run there is that overpaying against no competition is painful for a team that’s looking for clean cap sheets moving forward, especially given the complicated relationship between Hood and the team at this point.
The Cavaliers are short on wing depth in the short term, and working out a team-friendly deal would be to their advantage. It is possible still that Hood will sign his qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next summer.