Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 storylines to keep an eye on in training camp

Storyline #1: Nance’s three-point shooting progression

Nance is a player that could project as a franchise cornerstone for the Cavaliers. Coming over last season along with Jordan Clarkson in a trade deadline deal (that also brought George Hill and Rodney Hood), it was clear that Nance was going to be an energy big for Cleveland. That’s always good for a team in terms of a morale and youth standpoint, and the Cavs desperately needed that at the time.

However, with the Cavaliers and Nance rumored to have mutual interest in a contract extension (per Tom Withers of the Associated Press), it would be much better long-term if Nance at least provided some respectability from three-point land. In the early stages of training camp, Nance appears to be working on that perimeter J, per Cleveland.com’s Hayden Grove.

Danny Small of CavsNation recently noted how Nance’s three-point shot is unproven, and his development in that area would be a nice addition to the Cavs offense.

"“Nance has only attempted 58 3-pointers during his career and only 12 of those came last season. Nance is only a 22 percent 3-point shooter during his career.”"

It’s not as if Tristan Thompson has had a bad career for the Cavs. He’s still one of their best rebounders, particularly on the offensive end, and one of the team’s better overall defenders, when healthy. I just don’t want Nance to have Thompson’s limited offensive production as his ceiling after inking a long-term deal.

Nance is more of a high-flyer than Thompson that provides more of a lob threat in transition, especially, and is a more disruptive defender off the ball, for starters. With Ante Zizic being more of a traditional backup big (who the Cavs should be playing in meaningful minutes this season), and Frye not playing big minutes, Nance developing some consistency to provide a bit more spacing for Love, Osman, Hood and Sexton would open up more layers for Cleveland’s offense. He’s shown he can hit mid-range shots.

For his career, he has knocked down 42.0 percent of his attempts from 16 feet to the three-point arc, on a frequency of 19.3 percent, per Basketball Reference. So him developing some semblance of a three-point shot isn’t entirely out of the question. If he can take around 1.5 threes per game, and hit maybe 0.5 of those, it would be a tangible step in his development in the coming years.

He’s always going to be a very athletic roller and solid screener, a hustler, an above average passing big, and a solid rebounder on both ends. If he can stretch the floor a bit, though, that would solidify his starting role for years.

Secondly, Cleveland’s second option offensively is a relative unknown this season, and maybe that can be somewhat cleared up as training camp moves along.