NBA Trade Rumors: Cleveland Cavaliers' Star Wants Out After Poor Start To 2018-2019 Season

LeBron James and Tyronn Lue are both gone from the Cleveland Cavaliers after four straight trips to the NBA Finals. Now, it appears that another member of those teams is looking to be elsewhere.

J.R. Smith told reporters Thursday morning that he hopes to be traded. His statement comes on the heels of an incredibly disappointing start to the 2018-2019 season for the defending Eastern Conference champions.

Cleveland was the last NBA team to get their first win of the season, defeating the Atlanta Hawks Tuesday night. The victory put the Cavs at 1-6, which ties them for the worst record in the league.

Smith didn’t play in Cleveland’s lone win, and he hasn’t gotten much playing time through the first seven games. He’s sat all 48 minutes in three contests and played a total of 10 minutes in two other games. The veteran guard scored a season-high eight points when he played 18 minutes in the team’s fourth game of the season. Smith is averaging 2.5 points and one rebound per game.

With the Cavs’ younger players likely to get more minutes as the season progresses, it doesn’t appear that Smith will have much of a role with the team going forward. According to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, Cavs general manager Koby Altman recently told Smith he could take a leave of absence from the team, but Smith declined.

It could be very difficult for Cleveland to trade Smith. He’s signed for more than $30 million through the 2019-2020 season, though less than $4 million of next year's salary is guaranteed. Smith averaged just over eight points per game in each of the last two seasons, shooting less than 40 percent from the field.

Veterans like Kyle Korver and Kevin Love might be more likely to be traded in the coming months if Cleveland admits it’s time for a full rebuild. Korver is playing just over 15 minutes per game, but he’s still an elite three-point shooter and is owed half of what could be coming to Smith over the next two years. Love signed a contract extension in the offseason that will pay him $120 million from the 2019-2020 season through the 2022-2023 season.

Love has played just four games this season, and a toe injury will force him to miss multiple weeks. The Cavs could be in big trouble if the forward isn’t healthy for the majority of the season.

With LeBron James on the roster for the previous four seasons, Cleveland won one championship and never failed to win fewer than 50 games in a year.