Cleveland vs. Everybody: Cavaliers could gel with something to prove

The Cleveland Cavaliers and their fanbase should have plenty of reasons for optimism in the coming years, despite not projecting as a top-tier squad.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are not going to the NBA Finals for a while. That’s not a hot take.

It appears that they are not just throwing in the proverbial towel, either, though.

Ideally, I would’ve liked to have seen Cleveland commit to a full rebuild but choosing to compete next season while extending star power forward Kevin Love’s contract is something I can get behind.

They’ve shown they are going to let players prove themselves in the near future and grow under the guidance of the organization and coaching staff headed by Tyronn Lue.

The Cleveland Cavaliers waived forward Okaro White on Sunday “to avoid paying a portion of his $1.5 million salary for next season,” per Cleveland.com’s Joe Vardon. Shortly thereafter, Cleveland acquired young forward Sam Dekker, previously of the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Clippers, in a trade, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Vardon had more details to add about the financials, based on the previous trade last year with the Boston Celtics, along with draft rights.

"“Dekker is being acquired with the Cavs’ $5.8 million trade exception created in the Kyrie Irving trade with Boston last summer.The deal also includes the exchange of draft rights to European players on both sides and won’t be completed for a couple of days, a source said.”"

Dekker is a player who has underperformed to this point and was mainly injured in his rookie season in Houston (appearing in just three games). He has career averages of 5.3 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in reserve minute, likely given by default due to injury and lack of frontcourt depth.

He showed some flashes of above-the-rim ability in both places and shot well on corner three-point shots in Houston in 2016-17, hitting on 39.4 percent of those, per Basketball Reference. With mentoring from those in front of him in the frontcourt in Love and Channing Frye, (in addition to sharpshooting wing Kyle Korver), Dekker could improve from three-point land.

On the other end, he can at least do a serviceable job defending three’s and (predominantly spot-up) fours with solid lateral quickness and instincts.

Cleveland is going to have a number of contributors at the two-position and some players will likely log minutes at forward.

As the season moves along and potentially Korver, J.R. Smith, Tristan Thompson and George Hill garner interest, young pieces at their positions could deliver in a big way with a vote of confidence via more playing time.

Korver has been linked to the Philadelphia 76ers (per Keith Pompey of philly.com), and as KJG’s Simon Hannig noted, the Houston Rockets have “kicked the tires on J.R. Smith.”

Both players have shown they can knock down triples and Korver and Smith’s contracts are only partially guaranteed for 2019-20.

In regards to Hill and Thompson, nothing concrete has been rumored yet but they also should be on the block.

Jordan Clarkson, Rodney Hood, Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, David Nwaba, Larry Nance Jr. and Ante Zizic should be playing more meaningful minutes over those two.

All of those young pieces have had inconsistency (aside from the unproven Sexton) in their NBA careers to this point but all (minus Clarkson) provide some versatility and sound basketball IQ on both ends.

Clarkson and Nwaba should provide a solid offense-defense bench perimeter duo with high upside, Sexton has All-Star potential as a two-way lead guard. Both Hood and Osman will have plenty of chances to show their abilities in both offensive and defensive pick-and-roll this season.

Nance has already displayed a considerable amount of defensive versatility and should grow into an efficient roll man and secondary passer with Love’s gravity on offense.

Zizic projects as a decent post player on both ends.

In addition, two-way big Billy Preston has a massive ceiling, as KJG’s Quenton Albertie broke down.

With enough proven pieces to initially lead their youngsters, these Cavs could definitely crash the playoff party in the Eastern Conference.

KJG’s Nathan Beighle was on it when discussing how Cleveland should be a solid bet to surpass the over in their over-under win total of 30.5.

They have stockpiled just enough of the defensive versatility, potential playmaking and hungry mindset to exceed pundits’ expectations and potentially sneak in the postseason as a well-oiled unit.