Cavs rumors: Team won’t give Jaron Blossomgame a qualifying offer

The Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly won’t give Jaron Blossomgame a qualifying offer, which will make him an unrestricted free agent this summer.

As a two-way player that appeared in 27 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers (per Basketball Reference), forward Jaron Blossomgame played pretty well when given bench minutes for Cleveland.

Blossomgame was acquired last November in a trade with the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for previous Cavs two-way player John Holland, per a Canton Charge (the Cavs G League affiliate) press release.

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Blossomgame at the time played for the Austin Spurs, San Antonio’s G League affiliate, and was a solid defender when played for the Cavaliers last season.

On the season with the Wine and Gold, he had averages of 4.2 points on 49.1% effective field goal shooting, to go with 3.6 rebounds in 16.3 minutes per game (per Basketball Reference).

Per 36 minutes, it’s easier to see that he was particularly effective on the glass, as the 25-year-old had 8.0 rebounds with that criteria, and his energy off the bench was a positive in a stretch when the Cleveland Cavaliers were decimated by injuries to their frontcourt.

You could see that with the way he would get putbacks and frequently get tip-outs leading to open perimeter shots, which for a role player/hustler off the bench is always appreciated by teammates.

Blossomgame’s defense was good as well, and often due to injuries to key bigs such as Tristan Thompson and Larry Nance Jr. for notable stretches of last year, Blossomgame held up even when having to defend bigger 4’s, and his help and weak-side defense was usually on-point when rotating to shooters and cutters.

His instincts on that end of the floor stand out to me, as he’s rarely out of position in both on and off-ball defense, and uses his 6-foot-7, 220-pound frame (per NBA.com) well to stay attached to shooters fighting through screens and mirrors opposing ball-handlers in a sound way, which is something that was rare for the Cavs’ league-worst defense (per defensive rating, per NBA.com) in 2018-19.

That being said, it’s been reported by Fear The Sword’s Chris Manning (and h/t Amico Hoops’ Colton Jones) that the Cleveland Cavaliers won’t be extending Blossomgame a qualifying offer this summer, which will make him an unrestricted free agent soon.

Perhaps Blossomgame gets a summer league deal from another NBA team, or eventually plays out some of a two-way contract with the Cavaliers next season, anyhow.

For the Charge last season, he had averages of 17.3 points on 48.1% effective field goal shooting, to go with 7.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.1 blocks in 32.7 minutes per game (per Basketball Reference’s G League statistics).

Additionally, Cleveland recent signed undrafted free agent stretch forward Dean Wade to a two-way deal (as was initially reported by Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes) which further emphasizes Cleveland’s reported focus on spacing in the coming years.

Wade is a player that averaged 12.0 points on 55.6% effective field goal shooting, and knocked in 38.6% from three-point range in his four-year career at Kansas State (per Sports Reference), and has nice polish with his face-up game, mixed in with some ability in the mid-post area as well, and could be a decent role piece in the future for the Cavs that could benefit from time in Canton, anyhow.

Furthermore, I would imagine Blossomgame will get another crack at the NBA, as he seems to be a great teammate, a plus defender and rebounder, and is a player that finishes well in transition. We’ll see if anybody is rumored to be interested in signing him via minimum or two-way deal again in the coming weeks.