Cleveland Cavaliers have interest in signing Greg Monroe

The Cleveland Cavaliers need help down low and are targeting Greg Monroe to be their newest member.

According to basketball insider Mike Ortiz Jr., the Cleveland Cavaliers have interested in signing center Greg Monroe. Monroe recently agreed to a buyout with the Phoenix Suns and will be an unrestricted free agent if he clears waivers.

Monroe is averaging 10.4 points (on 60.1 percent shooting from the field), 7.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 21.8 minutes per game this season. For his career, he averages 13.9 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.

Monroe is an eight-year NBA veteran who spent the past two seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks before being traded to the Phoenix Suns in the blockbuster deal that sent Eric Bledsoe to the East. Monroe was recently bought out of his contract with the Suns, who have a glut of big men who need playing time and have a season that’s going nowhere.

Spending his first five seasons with the Detroit Pistons, Monroe carved out a role for himself as a go-to scorer in the low-post.

To this day, that’s still where Monroe does his best damage. This season, 41.5 percent of Monroe’s shots have been post-ups and he’s scoring 0.94 points per possession on 50.0 percent shooting but those numbers come from a small sample size (16 attempts). Last season, 30.6 percent of Monroe’s shots were post-ups and he scored 0.90 points per possession on 47.1 percent shooting from the field (225 attempts).

For the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that’s relied more on post-ups this season than in years past and just lost one of their top two low-post scorers in Kevin Love, Monroe can fit right in. He’ll also be helped by his impressive passing ability; he can hit teammates with high-low passes inside as well as he can find both cutters and shooters from the low-block.

To talk just a bit more about his offensive play on the interior, Monroe is also a superb roller, setting solid screens, taking great angles as he gains momentum and finishing with a nice touch around the rim.

Again, the sample sizes are too small this season to be of significance with him only taking seven total shots as the pick-and-roll man in 2017-2018. However, last season, Monroe scored 1.23 points per possession on 64.8 percent shooting from the field; he was in the 88th percentile for pick-and-roll roll men.

This an area where he’d actually perform better than Love, who scores 1.11 points per possession as a roll man and knocks down 45.6 percent of his shots in this play type.

Monroe has also added a reliable midrange jumper to his repertoire. Over the last three seasons, Monroe has made 43.1 percent of his shots 3-10 feet away from the rim, 45.5 percent of his shots 10-16 feet away from the rim and 41.6 percent of his shots 16-24 feet away from the rim.

This aids him in the pick-and-roll, as he becomes a legitimate pick-and-pop option. However, it truly helps the Cleveland Cavaliers arsenal of slashers, who could use that additional space on their drives to the rim.

With that said, how does a player so skilled become such an afterthought in the NBA?

Besides the fact that he came into the league as a poor defender, the evolution of the game has started to favor big men who can shoot from deep and guard along the perimeter.

Monroe has made a grand total of 0-of-12 threes in his NBA career. In addition, not the most lithe of centers, Monroe is the type of player who couldn’t jump over the proverbial phonebook.

However, within these last couple of seasons, Monroe has slimmed down since his early years in the league and improved his defensive capabilities. He’s also improved his defensive technique and is attempting to compensate for his athletic limitations, opting to attack the ball before players can raise it up for a shot and playing off of his knack for racking up steals.

In the 2016-2017 season, only Al Horford, Domantas Sabonis and Jonas Valanciunas guarded as many shots from pick-and-roll rollers as Monroe and caused more turnovers. Monroe was in the 88th percentile guarding the post in the 2016-2017 season, only allowing opponents to shoot 37.0 percent from the field.

Monroe’s improvements just so happen to have taken place at the same time that the Milwaukee Bucks added young and promising big men like Thon Maker and he was traded to a situation that wasn’t ideal for him as a player because there was still a big man logjam, just a different team.

If the Cleveland Cavaliers indeed sign Monroe, he won’t be filling in for Love (because Love is every bit of the three-point threat Monroe isn’t and because Monroe shouldn’t be chasing shooters around screens).

However, it does give them a tremendous rebounder (career average of 8.7 rebounds in 29.3 minutes per game), something they need in the absence of Love (who is averaging 9.4 rebounds in 28.0 minutes per game) and player who can be their backup or starting center.

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*Unless otherwise referenced, stats gathered from www.basketball-reference.com