Cleveland Cavaliers: Roster now stands at 14, and no surprise cuts

Now is around the time NBA teams are looking to make their roster near the league standard of 15 players, and the Cleveland Cavaliers now waived four players, meaning their roster now stands at 14.

The Cleveland Cavaliers just finished up their preseason action last night with a 129-110 loss to the Detroit Pistons and Blake Griffin. Cleveland starts the regular season on Wednesday at the Toronto Raptors, and today, the team announced that they waived four players, which included speedy point guard Isaiah Taylor.

Three of the players, those being Kobi Simmons, Emanuel Terry (who only appeared in one preseason game), and Bonzie Colson, did not seem to have much of a chance to make Cleveland.

Simmons is a player that can score in the mid-range area against reserves at times, but is not much of a three-point threat, and the Cavaliers are stacked at the two guard position. In 10.9 minutes per game, he averaged 4.0 points and shot just 35.3 percent and a 1.0 to 2.0 assist-to-turnover ratio, per NBA.com. He also had a plus-minus of -6.0.

Terry did not get much of an opportunity to show his skills with only one preseason appearance, but he wouldn’t warrant minutes over the other reserve Cleveland bigs in Ante Zizic, Tristan Thompson or Channing Frye.

Colson had 3.7 points per game on 45.5 percent shooting from the field, to go with 3.3 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 9.7 minutes in three preseason appearances.

He has some potential as a reserve small-ball four that is pretty effective in the post on both ends, but he wouldn’t warrant minutes over taller options among the end of bench Cavaliers’ bigs in Frye, Zizic and two-way Billy Preston.

Taylor did flash at times in live action, but he was cut shortly after the first three.

Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor had more on the waiving, and noted that a stress fracture in Taylor’s leg didn’t help.

"“Taylor recently suffered a stress fracture in his leg and told cleveland.com that he could be out for a month. Despite a strong camp and head coach Tyronn Lue’s support, the Cavs waived Taylor about 30 minutes after announcing their first three roster cuts.”"

The Cavs have plenty of players that need to get significant action this year, and these waived players probably wouldn’t have played much as the 15th man anyhow.

Whether the Cleveland Cavaliers decide to add on a 15th man or not, they probably won’t warrant playing time in meaningful minutes unless that signing adds good passing as a third point guard, potential for efficient rim protection or that signing can boast some stretch four ability.

We’ll see how that plays out as the regular season gets under way.