Trade Grade: Cavaliers Acquire Spencer Hawes from 76ers

New Cavs General Manager David Griffin makes his mark moving for the Sixer’s bigman

The first trade of some significance took place between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers. The Cavaliers shipped forward Earl Clark, reserve big man Henry Sims and two second round draft picks to the 76ers in exchange for big man Spencer Hawes. The Cavaliers and 76ers are two teams in completely different situations; the Cavaliers made this move to help them make a run to make the playoffs, while the 76ers went through with the transaction to further their tanking efforts. Earl Clark could also be a decent option to fill the void of Evan Turner who was traded to Indiana right before the deadline passed.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Despite being good value for the Cavaliers, at first glance it took me a minute to understand their initiative to make this move. The Cavaliers already have an established front-line of Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao and I don’t see either being placed on the bench if not for team chemistry reasons alone. However after those two their options are limited for players in the post since the Andrew Bynum experiment didn’t work out. Tyler Zeller is decent, but the Cavaliers really needed a reliable big man to come off the bench and help run with a second unit. Spencer Hawes is more than capable to do this. Hawes is currently in the midst of the best season of his career as he currently boasts a more-than-respectable stat-line of 13 PPG and 8.5 RPG, while shooting 45.1% from the floor. Another luxury that comes with having Hawes is his ability to stretch the floor. Shooting just a shade under 40% from behind the arch, Hawes is one of the more dangerous stretch-fours in the league. Also when looking back on the deal, the Cavaliers really didn’t give up that much to bring Hawes in. Anthony Bennett has been playing better recently, so there was no point in keeping around multiple forwards to take away some of his minutes. Bennett’s development should still be one of Cleveland’s top priorities, and with the departure of Earl Clark Bennett should even see a few extra minutes coming his way.  Second round picks aren’t that big of a deal, and Henry Sims rarely saw the floor. This looks like a fantastic trade for the Cavaliers, and they’re definitely in striking-range for one of the low playoff seeds in the awful East.

Trade Grade: A-

Philadelphia 76ers

Philadelphia is only worried about tanking at this point. They got out to a decent start this year but they’ve begun fizzling out and have become the team we expected them to be before the season started.  At this point Philadelphia is all about acquiring assets and young prospects.  Spencer Hawes is a decent big but he’s not a player you keep in your core for the future, so there’s really no harm in letting him go. After adding two more today, Philadelphia now has a plethora of second round picks. They could attempt to package these to move up in the draft or use them for trades for other players this summer. Another important factor to remember is Nerlens Noel, who the Philadelphia selected with the sixth overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft.  While it’s looking unlikely that he’ll play this year, Philadelphia will probably expect him to be ready to start next year and Spencer Hawes only would have cut into his minutes which could slow his developmental process. I hate this for Earl Clark a little bit. When he signed with Cleveland this summer he expected to be an important factor on a sure-fire playoff team, now he’s on one of the worst teams in the league and this is also his fourth team in two years. At the end of the day I certainly don’t see this as a bad trade for Philadelphia, Hawes is a decent player but he’s not the type of player they’ll look back on in a few years and regret letting him go. It will, however, be interesting to see if Henry Sims gets some serious minutes here down the stretch. I highly doubt he has a future in the league, but sometimes a chance and a change of scenery is all a guy needs to show he can be a solid player in the league.  Who knows, maybe he could be a future reliable backup to Nerlens Noel?

Trade Grade: B