Cleveland Cavaliers: Power Ranking the roster for post-All-Star break

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Brandon Knight, who also was traded to Cleveland in the aforementioned deal involving Chriss, showed some of his scoring skill set in 24 games post-All-Star break, and has reportedly done his part to provide additional mentoring to Sexton, who clearly helped in the closing stretch of the season.

Knight displayed that he’s a pretty reliable catch-and-shoot perimeter player and can provide some secondary playmaking; on the Cleveland Cavaliers, he averaged 6.8 points on 46.0 effective field goal shooting (but most notably a 37.1% clip from three, per NBA.com), to go with 2.3 assists per game.

He’s still not fully recovered from a terrible ACL tear that caused him to miss the entire 2017-18 season, though, and that’s difficult.

However, Knight’s play did seem to tail off in the last month or so of the season, and ultimately, he had the second-worst plus-minus of players on the Cavs post-All-Star break (per NBA.com).

With him expiring after the 2019-20 season (according to Spotrac), hopefully he can get considerably healthier this summer, because he does still have plenty of talent as a three-level scorer in this league, and it would be ideal if the Cavaliers can capitalize on that in a potential trade down the road.

Tristan Thompson played really well for the Cavs when he was healthy in the first two or so months of the season, but since he reportedly suffered a rough foot injury in December, he’s been a shell of himself.

Post-All-Star break, TT did flash some of his earlier season ways, en route to posting 8.6 points on 54.9% shooting and 6.1 rebounds per outing in eight games.

His defense wasn’t nearly the same on the interior, though, and he didn’t seem to have close to his usual solid quickness, and this sort of thing was a key reason why TT had the Cavs’ worst plus-minus and net rating post-break (per NBA.com).

With him having a long offseason to recover, though, I’d expect Thompson’s trade value to be on the way up again in the months leading up to next year’s NBA trade deadline, where he should warrant interest as an expiring player with plenty of postseason experience.

David Nwaba has shown on a number of occasions that he is a high-level defender when healthy, and although his defensive production slipped a bit toward the end of the year, he demonstrated that he can be a key defensive piece for the Cavs with his ability to lock up opposing primary ball-handlers, and even defend small-ball 4’s to some degree.

He placed in the 79th percentile as a post-up defender (on a frequency of 9.8%, per Synergy Sports Technology), which is pretty impressive, considering he’s listed at 6-foot-4.

On the offensive end, Nwaba posted 6.5 points on 52.7% effective field shooting (including a respectable 35.5% hit rate on three-point shots) in 20.3 minutes per outing in 24 games; if he can keep providing some spot-up shooting from the corners to go with his instinctive cutting in settled offense/secondary transition, he could be a fixture in the Cavs’ rotation again next year if he can be mostly healthy.

Last year, he was active in only 51 games (per Basketball Reference), because of reported knee and ankle sprains.

As Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor recently noted, Nwaba could be in line to play next year on a “$1.9 million qualifying offer,” if Cleveland extends him that in late June, which would seem likely.

Nwaba basically said, per Fedor, that there’s been no word yet from the Cavs, but then said “I want to come back.”

Matthew Dellavedova only played in seven games post-All-Star break, and that was mostly due to him reportedly suffering a rough concussion in early March, but when he was in, as had been the case really since he was traded back to Cleveland by the Bucks in December, he led the second unit offense effectively.

“Delly” only put up 5.1 points on just 38.2 effective field goal shooting, but he kept the offense in-rhythm, as he did most of the season when he was in, and got shooters and rollers around him the ball in their sweet spots, as evidenced by him leading the Cavaliers in assists in this stretch of games with 4.7, with just 1.1 turnovers per outing, too.

More time with Sexton in the offseason for Delly should help the “Young Bull” going into his second season, additionally.

Defensively, Dellavedova is still pretty effective on the perimeter both on and off the ball, and is usually in the right position. If there’s a loose ball, he’ll never hesitate to get it, either.

Can Delly stay healthy next year, though?

That will go a long way as to determining his trade value (he’s expiring in 2019-20 as well, per Spotrac).

Ante Zizic has often been praised by still (at this moment at least) current head coach Larry Drew for his progression throughout this season. He’s proven that he has plenty of value to Cleveland going forward as an interior bench scorer with an upward trajectory as a mid-range shooter, too, as we recently touched on here at KJG.

Post-All-Star break, Zizic posted averages of 10.2 points on 61.2% shooting, along with 6.3 rebounds in 22.8 minutes per game in 18 games active, per NBA.com. He had the second-best plus-minus in that stretch, only trailing Delly, who had a much smaller sample size.

For Zizic to really take the next step, though, he’ll have to improve his quickness to defend more effectively in the pick-and-roll, and he’ll have to show he has some willingness and effectiveness when it comes to shooting from behind the arc.