What Will Dahntay Jones And Walter “Edy” Tavares Bring To The Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cleveland Cavaliers waived DeAndre Liggins and Larry Sanders for Dahntay Jones and Walter “Edy” Tavares. While the moves are unpopular, they will be beneficial.

Replacing DeAndre Liggins and Larry Sanders with Dahntay Jones and Walter “Edy” Tavares is one way for the Cleveland Cavaliers to take the air out of the building but should it?

Liggins and Sanders had become fan favorites despite their lack of playing time in the final stretch of the season. Liggins, a defensive-minded guard who made his fans in Cleveland with his fullcourt pressure and impact on Stephen Curry in their Christmas Day game was waived first.

However, Liggins ended up on the end of the Cleveland Cavaliers bench as Tyronn Lue benched him in favor of Iman Shumpert. Liggins has since been claimed off waivers by the Dallas Mavericks.

One of the reasons Liggins was cut, in my opinion, was to boost Shumpert’s confidence. For some players it could be harder to succeed when you hit a slump and everybody is calling for the guy behind you on the depth chart to play instead of you. In the same vein, it may helped Tyronn Lue, who was beginning to get criticized for playing Shumpert too much and refusing to play Liggins at all.

It may have been a move that was supposed to be addition by subtraction. The Cavs may never admit it but it’s worth considering, especially given how surprising the move to cut Liggins was.

36-year-old Dahntay Jones hasn’t officially signed yet but he will according to Chris Reichert of The Step Back and Chris Haynes of ESPN. While also being an imperfect three-and-D player (Jones has shot 33.1 percent from three-point range over his career) with memorable moments against the Golden State Warriors, what he has over Liggins is veteran leadership. That leadership really seems to be needed in the locker room.

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At least half of the roster and Tyronn Lue himself seem to think they could have flipped the switch in the playoffs while James Jones told them “that’s a lie“.

LeBron James is becoming more and more defensive about his own play and critical of his teammates play and mindsets ahead of the playoffs.

Deron Williams thought the Cavs would be playing “a lot better” than they are.

Shumpert hit a slump, guys are in and out of the lineup consistently, they can’t put together a full 48-minute performance.

Things aren’t peachy in the Land and the Cavs simply need another strong voice on the team.

Sanders has been a player that the Cavs fans were excited about because he was an elite shot-blocker in the beginning of his career. In the NBA Development League, he strung together a trio of three-block performances and was beginning to get his legs under him enough to get up-and-down the floor without getting fatigues and to be able to box out for contested rebounds. However, according to Lue, Sanders wasn’t ready yet.

Some would say it’s hard for a player to be ready when they don’t play but that’s neither here nor there. What’s curious is that Sanders is a player who was considered a long-term signing and so his play this season really shouldn’t have effected his spot on the roster.

Is it possible that Sanders did something off-the-court in Miami or when the Cleveland Cavaliers made it back home to Cleveland? Or could Tristan Thompson actually be more hurt than the Cavs thought or say?

Thompson has been said to have a sprained right thumb and knee tendinitis over the course of the season. There’s no telling how long that’s been going on or how many more nicks and bruises Thompson earned while being the NBA’s ironman and an undersized starting center.

Tavares, like Thompson, is a fairly mobile big man. However, he’s a 7-foot-2 behemoth who makes it all look easy because he looks like a man among boys on the court.

He doesn’t have to do much to get a rebound over another player or finish off a pick-and-roll with a powerful slam. His hook shot is a shot he gets off naturally and according to stats.nbadleague.com, he hits 45.2 percent of them while making 51.4 percent of his turnaround hook shots. He’s also able to stretch the floor a bit, hitting 64.7 percent of his shots 15-19 feet away from the rim and 51.1 percent of his shots from the midrange.

What’s most important about Tavares though is his ability to be a shot-blocker. He blocked 2.7 shots per game for the Raptors 905 in the NBA D-League. He shows above-average shot-blocking instincts and timing as a rim-protector. Even shots he doesn’t block are altered by his presence in the paint as he can frequently deter ball-handlers from attempting to get a shot up over him.

At 25-years-old, he’s also a player the Cavs can choose to invest in for the long-term. The primary difference between he and Sanders is that Tavares is in basketball shape and doesn’t need to re-calibrate his timing on the court.

It remains to be seen if these moves will work out for the Cleveland Cavaliers but there’s rhyme and reason to these moves. With that, it shows the front office is trying to work on two of the bigger issues of the Cavs ahead of the playoffs. Chemistry and frontcourt depth.

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What do you think of the Cleveland Cavaliers recent transactions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.