Portland Trail Blazers: 3 reasons why keeping Rodney Hood was smart

3. Value

Going into this free agency, nobody — not even Blazers general manager, Neil Olshey — thought this team would be able to keep Rodney Hood on the roster. Portland went into the summer way over the salary cap and would only have the taxpayer mid-level exception ($5.7 million) to keep him around.

In a press conference introducing new Blazer Kent Bazemore, Olshey told the media he thought Hood was going to be too pricey, which is why they added Bazmore.

"“With the distinct possibility that we might end up losing Rodney Hood to offers that go beyond what we can compete with based on our tax mid-level, we needed to get a wing that replicated a lot of the things we were successful with doing last season,” he said."

Well, the Blazers were able to keep Hood in Rip City for an incredible value. According to Jason Quick of The Athletic, the deal for Hood is more of $12 million contract instead of $16 million. Portland is giving him $5.7 million the first year, and he has a player option on the second year worth $6 million.

It has not been reported what offers Hood might have gotten from other teams, but it’s more than likely he took a slight pay cut to stay in Rip City. He was an excellent fit on this roster and played well alongside Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic. Him being a vital piece to their playoff run might have helped the organization keep him.

During the playoffs, Hood talked to The Athletic’s Jason Quick and expressed his interested in returning to the team (subscription required).

After a rough couple of years in the around the league, Hood was able to have fun and play well again with the Blazers. He is still just 26 and will hit the free agency market again. If he plays great in these one or two years, he could be in line for a massive payday. However, for now, Portland gets a talented player for relatively cheap.