Cavs: If he’s back, David Nwaba will likely be better utilized next year
By Dan Gilinsky
If the Cleveland Cavaliers bring back David Nwaba next season, which they should and reportedly likely will, he’ll probably be better utilized next year than he was in 2019-20.
David Nwaba did not have a bad 2018-19 season, but he was simply not maximized by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Obviously, Nwaba reportedly dealing with knee and ankle sprains did not help his play, and I would assume limited his minutes-share with Cleveland, anyhow.
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He missed 31 games due those two ailments (per Basketball Reference), and when he was playing considerable minutes for former head coach Larry Drew, Nwaba was forced to switch on to opposing post-up players and bigger wings too often because of Cleveland’s injury issues with their big rotation, and even though he did fairly well defensively in those post-up scenarios (as he placed in the 80th percentile, per Synergy Sports Technology), he still projects as arguably the Cavaliers’ best perimeter defender next season, though their first 2019 NBA Draft selection may change that.
Nonetheless, I would expect new head coach John Beilein to deploy Nwaba more on the perimeter and if injuries are to happen to players such as Kevin Love, Larry Nance Jr. and potentially Tristan Thompson again in 2019-20 which was too often the case last year, I would still expect Nwaba to defend against opponent’s primary ball-handlers more than he was able to last year.
With Nwaba’s injuries last season, playing against considerably bigger players on the interior defensively couldn’t have made things easier for him, and with Cleveland hopefully not bringing back Marquese Chriss next year, who is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer (to go with Channing Frye retiring) I would think there’s a good possibility that the Cavaliers draft a big with one of their two picks in the upcoming draft, or with them potentially acquiring another pick via trade, and that would likely enable Nwaba and other perimeter defenders to play out of position not nearly as often as they did last year, which we’ve hit on previously.