Utah Jazz alums: Rodney Hood finally signed for next season

After a rough restricted free agency, former Utah Jazz guard Rodney Hood will finally put pen to paper on a contract for next season.

The strangely uneventful restricted free agency of Rodney Hood finally found its conclusion over the weekend. Ultimately, the former Utah Jazz guard decided to stay put with the post-LeBron Cleveland Cavaliers and give the market another go in 2019.

According to Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com, Hood will put pen to paper on his $3.4-million qualifying offer from the Cavs. Per Vardon’s sources, the 25-year-old informed the team of his decision on Sunday.

If anything qualifies as certainty in the world of NBA basketball, it’s this: outside of the Golden State Warriors cruising to the Larry O’Brien Trophy, not much is certain at all. There are few better examples of this than Hood’s recent journey.

One year ago, he was set to replace All-Star Gordon Hayward as Utah’s go-to guy offensively. Meanwhile, the hoops intelligentsia wondered how the Jazz would ever manage to keep him in town once he entered the open market.

Fast-forward to the now and nary a team in the whole of the Association made a significant play for the former Duke Blue Devil. What was once expected to be a big-time free agency was about as raucous and wild as my Sunday nap.

Before Hood was dealt to Cleveland in February, he had averaged 16.8 points per contest in 39 appearances with the Jazz. Along the way, he knocked down nearly 39 percent of his 6.7 3-point attempts per game. Despite the fact that he lost his starting spot to rookie standout Donovan Mitchell, he was still well on his way to a career year.

However, Hood’s minutes and production dipped significantly with the Cavs in a lesser role. He would later admit that he struggled to adapt to the spotlight that comes with being LeBron James‘ teammate. Things only got worse as the regular season gave way to the NBA Playoffs. By the time the postseason was nearing its conclusion, Hood had fallen out of coach Tyronn Lue‘s rotation.

Things seemingly came to a head when Hood took a pass on playing during garbage time of the Cavs’ close-out win over the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals. That situation would eventually blow over, with both the Cavs and Hood insisting it was no big deal, but one has to wonder if it helped seal his fate this offseason.

Here’s what I do know — while the Jazz system may have buoyed Hood to some big numbers at times, he’s a much better player than he got the opportunity to show in Cleveland. By inking his qualifying offer and betting on himself in 2018-19, he could still give himself the opportunity to land a high-dollar, long-term deal next summer.

Time will tell if he can make it happen, but I, for one, like his chances.