{"id":159622,"date":"2026-02-02T00:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T00:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159622\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T00:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T00:33:29","slug":"cleveland-cavaliers-acquire-guard-keon-ellis-in-nba-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/159622\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers acquire guard Keon Ellis in NBA trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Alabama<\/a> guard Keon Ellis<\/a> has changed teams ahead of Thursday\u2019s NBA trade deadline.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired Ellis and guard Dennis Schroder from the Sacramento Kings and forward Emanuel Miller from the Chicago Bulls while sending forward De\u2019Andre Hunter to the Kings and draft considerations to the Bulls. As part of the deal, Sacramento sent center Dario Saric and a second-round draft pick to Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter careful evaluation and a clearer view of the Eastern Conference landscape, we believe adding Dennis and Keon strengthens our depth, expands our flexibility and positions us to keep building a championship-caliber team now and into the future,\u201d said Koby Altman<\/a>, the Cavaliers\u2019 president of basketball operations, on Sunday. \u201cIn a season defined by its parity, this move better aligns us for a deeper postseason run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacramento has a 12-38 record, the worst in the NBA. Cleveland is 29-21, tied for fourth in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

In his fourth NBA season, Ellis has averaged 5.6 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 43 games, with five starts, for the Kings.<\/p>\n

Ellis experienced a downturn in his playing time with Sacramento in the 2025-26 campaign. Last season, Ellis averaged 8.3 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 steals in 80 games, with 28 starts. After averaging 24.4 minutes per game in the 2024-25 season, Ellis was playing 17.6 minutes per game this season.<\/p>\n

Ellis ranked eighth in the NBA in 3-point shooting rate at 43.3 percent and had almost twice as any steals as any other Sacramento player with 121 last season. Ellis\u2019 3-point shooting dropped to 36.8 percent, and newcomer Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan have more steals for the Kings than Ellis does this season.<\/p>\n

Ellis was considered a popular target at the trade deadline because of his backcourt flexibility, defensive ability and contract situation. Ellis is playing for $2.302 million this season after the Kings picked up their option<\/a> on his contract in the offseason. <\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s top guards are Donovan Mitchell, a six-time All-Star Game selection who is averaging 29.1 points per game this season, and Darius Garland, who has averages of 18.0 points and 6.9 assists per game this season. But Garland has been sidelined since Jan. 14 because of a toe injury.<\/p>\n

The fourth pick of the 2019 NBA Draft, Hunter averaged 14.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 43 games, with 23 starts, for the Cavaliers this season. <\/p>\n

In his 13th NBA season, Schroder averaged 12.8 points, 3.1 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 40 games, with 14 starts, for the Kings this season.<\/p>\n

The 12th pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Saric has played in five games this season for Sacramento. Miller has played in five games this season for Chicago.<\/p>\n

An undrafted player in 2022 after two seasons at Alabama, Ellis signed with the Kings and spent most of his rookie season with the Stockton Kings, Sacramento\u2019s NBA Gatorade League affiliate. He played 71 minutes in the NBA in the 2022-23 campaign.<\/p>\n

In this second season, Ellis didn\u2019t play a game for Stockton even though he began the campaign playing on a two-way contract, which allowed Sacramento to move him back and forth between the NBA and the NBA G League.<\/p>\n

Ellis averaged 5.4 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 57 games in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Alabama guard Keon Ellis has changed teams ahead of Thursday\u2019s NBA trade deadline. The Cleveland Cavaliers acquired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1966,121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-159622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-remote","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}