Central Notes: Hood, Leuer, Cavs

It’s official, Rodney Hood‘s long, humbling summer is over. We wrote earlier today that the restricted free agent was planning to accept his qualifying offer from the Cavaliers and now, per Shams Charania of The Athletic, the paperwork has been submitted.

Hood will land back in Cleveland for one season at $3.4MM but will try his luck again as an unrestricted free agent next summer. While Hood had initially hoped to land an eight-digit offer sheet and put pressure on the Cavaliers to match, such a generous offer never materialized.

As Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets, prior to Hood’s decision to sign the qualifying offer both he and the Cavaliers explored sign and trade options. Alas, the 25-year-old didn’t quite command what many – including us here at Hoops Rumors, admittedly – thought he might.

There’s more out of the Central Division this evening:

  • The Pistons need Jon Leuer to earn the $20MM he’s owed over the course of the next two seasons if they’re going to procure the frontcourt depth that they’ll need to compete in the East. Realistically, Keith Langlois of the team’s official site writes, they’ll look for the 29-year-old big man to slot in at both power forward and center and provide solid defense off the bench.
  • The Cavaliers have their work cut out for them building another serious contender in the Eastern Conference, fortunately the club isn’t afraid to take risks. Joe Gabriele of the Cavs’ team site recently broke down the biggest trades in club history.
  • Want to know more about Rodney Hood‘s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad summer? Check out our summary of the initial announcement that he’d accepted the Cavaliers‘ qualifying offer, as well as some reporting about how he was angling for twice as much as recently as yesterday.
View Comments (2)