NBA Rumors: Cleveland Cavaliers sign Scotty Hopson to get in position for future trade

On Monday, the Cleveland Cavaliers announced they signed former Tennessee Volunteers’ guard Scotty Hopson.

As details of the deal came out, something was off. Hopson went undrafted in 2011 and has never played in an NBA game. He has spent his time playing with the Kolossos Rodou of the Greek Basket League, the Hapoel Eilat of the Israeli Basketball Super League and Anadolu Efes of the Turkish Basketball League.

With the kind of resume, giving Hopson a two-year deal with $3.8 million certainly seems a bit strange.

According to Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, this move is more about the Cavaliers attempting to pull of a major trade in the offseason.

"The second year of Hopson’s deal, worth $1.45 million, is nonguaranteed. The Cavs now have a stockpile of nonguaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts that could be attractive in trades around June’s draft.Combined with the contracts of Alonzo Gee, Matthew Dellavedova and Anderson Varejao, the Cavs have a trove of options to use as trade bait for a team that wants to clear salary-cap space. In addition to their all their own draft picks, the Cavs also own future first-rounders from the Memphis Grizzlies and Miami Heat."

The Cavaliers are desperate to get back into the postseason and have proven that by taking a chance on Andrew Bynum and then trading him to the Chicago Bulls to get Luol Deng. They also acquired Spencer Hawes from the Philadelphia 76ers.

Now it looks like the Cavaliers will be swinging for the fences again in a few months.