Cavs: Team trading for Cam Reddish would be a monumental mistake

The Cavs are reportedly interested in Hawks’ wing player Cam Reddish.

The Cavaliers are aware that they need wing depth. The team is looking around to see who is available and according to Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com, names like Kyle Anderson, Terrence Ross, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic, Cam Reddish, T.J. Warren, Thaddeus Young, Tobias Harris, Jeremy Lamb, and Harrison Barnes are all apparently on the market, but will all cost a pretty penny no doubt. Of those teams, it appears that the Cavs are most high on Reddish.

Fedor is reporting that the Cavs have in fact contacted the Atlanta Hawks about Reddish.

"The Cavs spoke with the New Orleans Pelicans about the possibility of a Josh Hart sign-and-trade, sources tell cleveland.com, but that possibility apparently vanished Monday, when Hart moved closer to a three-year, $38 million deal to stay in New Orleans. Cleveland has also explored the trade market. Kyle Anderson, Terrence Ross, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic, Cam Reddish, T.J. Warren, Thaddeus Young, Tobias Harris, Jeremy Lamb and Harrison Barnes are all said to be available. Reddish is a player the Cavs liked in the 2019 draft. They’ve been in contact with Atlanta about him. But wings don’t come cheap.In initial conversations, sources say most teams are asking for Cleveland’s 2022 first-round pick (with protections, of course), but that would be incredibly risky for a team with 60 total wins the last three years and projects to, in a best-case scenario, compete for a Play-In spot in 2021-22. Without the future first-rounder, which the Cavs seem unwilling to put on the table for any of the ‘available’ wings, interest turns to either Larry Nance Jr. — one of the few adults and winning players on the roster — or the pair of extra 2022 second-round picks (Houston and San Antonio). Does combining one or both with Cedi Osman get the Cavs anywhere?"

The Cavs are out of their mind to want to trade for Cam Reddish

While Reddish is a fine defender with defensive RAPTOR scores of 0.0 in ’19-’20 and a +0.1 in ’20-’21, what he isn’t is a good offensive player. He’s not just a bad offensive player, he’s gotten worse. For context, Reddish and Darius Garland had near-identical +/- on offense as rookies; Garland had a -2.6, Reddish a -2.9. Keep in mind that Garland, as a rookie, was graded out as the worst player in the NBA for the number of minutes played. So they were both very bad offensively as first-years.

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In year two, Reddish improved to a -2.6, while Garland improved to a +0.2. Garland played on a worse team and didn’t play alongside someone as talented as Trae Young and yet showed far more growth. There’s really no excuse for Reddish to still be that ineffective in year two.

Let’s go beyond metrics, and just start talking facts and stats. Reddish declined in year two, which isn’t entirely true. That sort of implies that Reddish had a good rookie year. He did not. He was one of the worst players in the league as a rookie. This, despite the fact that there was so much hype around Reddish after he fell to the Hawks at No. 10 in the 2019 Draft. Many claimed he was the steal of the draft.

Cue laugh track here.

He only shot 38% from the floor as a rookie and shot a rough 32% from three. As a sophomore in the league, his shooting stats fell to 36.5% from the floor and 26.2% from three. Yet, the Cavs want to dangle out draft picks and Cedi Osman? Why? Osman is stastically better than Reddish.

I thought the team wanted to upgrade the spot?

Yes, Reddish is a solid defender, but the team has a solid wing defender right now who can’t shoot in Isaac Okoro. You’re going to what, build a team around Okoro and Reddish’s ability to miss three’s? Sound logic. Let’s go with that. Never mind the fact the Cavs inability to compete with teams stemmed from the fact they were outshot from behind the arc, making it impossible to keep pace.

No, let’s add another ineffective three-point shooter to the mix. That’ll show them.

Learn from P.J. Washington’s mistake; just because someone is available doesn’t mean they’re right for you. Reddish has had two back-to-back bad years and is available for a trade. What does that say about how the Hawks feel about him?

If the Hawks are ready to cut bait on someone many thoughts was a top-three pick in that draft class, then that is a sign he’s trending in the wrong direction. Let him be someone else’s reclamation project.

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