The Cavaliers wound up with one real thing from the De'Andre Hunter trade, and it wasn’t a player.
Cleveland’s run with Hunter turned into a two-part miss. First, the move to bring him in never paid off.
Then, after shipping him out, the Cavaliers discovered the return package didn’t amount to much either. In the end, the only tangible gain was financial flexibility.
Last February, Cleveland had already seen enough to pivot. Hunter had become a bad fit with the Cavaliers.
His offense never really clicked in the system, his shot stopped falling the way it had when he first arrived, and he was a liability on defense. So the Cavaliers sent Hunter and a second-round pick to the Sacramento Kings for veteran point guard Dennis Schroder and young 3-and-D wing Keon Ellis, who was described as “underrated.”
On paper, it was easy to wonder whether Cleveland had found something. Maybe Ellis could help shore up the backcourt defensively.
Maybe Schroder could step in as the steady backup point guard after Ty Jerome left in free agency. But that optimism disappeared fast.
The answer, as it played out, was no. Ellis was too slight to hold up in the playoffs.
Schroder was serviceable, but he wanted the ball in his hands. And when the Cavaliers reached the Eastern Conference Finals, they got there mostly in spite of those two guards, not because of them.
Even the long-term angle collapsed. Ellis left in free agency to sign with the Brooklyn Nets. Schroder was later sent to the Charlotte Hornets, with Cleveland attaching $4 million in cash so it could create the space needed to re-sign James Harden.
That left the Cavaliers with nothing from the Hunter trade except room on the books. It was useful room, to be sure.
Cleveland used that flexibility to pull off a sign-and-trade for young wing Peyton Watson and still bring back Harden on the deal he wanted. But that’s a thin return for a player the Cavaliers expected to matter.
If Hunter had become the player they hoped for, Cleveland wouldn’t have needed to pay to add Watson. And the team might have had a chance to move Jarrett Allen for real value if Hunter had been able to handle a full-time stretch-4 role.
Instead, Hunter couldn’t reach that level, and he couldn’t bring back much when the Cavaliers moved on. Over the span of 18 months, Cleveland spent picks and players to get him, watched his value drop, and then traded him away for essentially no on-court return at all.
That’s the ugly part of team building. Getting it wrong once is bad enough. Getting it wrong on the way in and on the way out makes the damage feel even bigger.
Cleveland deserves a little credit for salvaging something from the mess by finding its way to the Peyton Watson deal. But that doesn’t change the bigger truth: the Cavaliers failed both De'Andre Hunter trades.
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