The Raptors and veteran wing Rodney Hood have agreed to push back the guarantee date on his salary for 2021/22, tweets Blake Murphy of The Athletic.
Hood’s $10.85MM salary was originally set to become fully guaranteed if he wasn’t waived by the end of the day on July 27. Instead, that deadline will be August 3, so the Raptors will get another week to consider their options with the 28-year-old.
There’s no real chance that the Raptors will guarantee Hood’s salary in order to keep him. He’s coming off a down year and was a throw-in for salary-matching purposes in the deadline deal that sent Norman Powell to Portland and Gary Trent Jr. to Toronto.
In 55 total games for the Blazers and Raptors in 2020/21, Hood averaged 4.5 PPG and 1.9 RPG with a .362 FG% and .301 3PT% in 17.1 minutes per contest (55 games). All of those marks were career lows by a wide margin.
Still, it’s possible that Hood’s expiring contract could prove useful in certain trade scenarios for the Raptors. Pushing his guarantee deadline back a week gives Toronto some more time to continue exploring those scenarios, and leaves the door open for Hood to earn a higher salary than he would if he were waived today and became a free agent.