Cavs: Kevin Porter Jr. trade is made official, and that should give him more SL reps

The Kevin Porter Jr. trade was reportedly made official on Wednesday, and that should allow the rookie to have more run with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Summer League team.

The Cleveland Cavaliers officially added rookie Kevin Porter Jr. to their team on Wednesday, and he was acquired with the 30th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

As we’ve touched on, that came from Cleveland trading back into the first round for Porter, in exchange for them sending the Detroit Pistons four future second-round picks (according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic and Stadium’s Shams Charania), and $5.0 million in cash, per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

Porter was initially drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks, and was sent to Detroit along with Tony Snell, who was reportedly traded to the Pistons in exchange for Jon Leuer before the draft, per Wojnarowski.

So playing right into what a Cleveland staffer reportedly told Basketball Insiders’ Spencer Davies, the trade of Porter’s draft rights was made official on Wednesday, per an announcement from the Cavaliers.

That was encouraging to see, because it’ll likely enable Porter to take advantage of extra run with Cleveland’s Summer League team, as the Cavaliers will reportedly play in the Salt Lake City Summer League this year for the first time from July 1-3, per the team.

That will allow Porter and others, such as fellow first-round pick Dylan Windler, to get their first glimpse of Cleveland head coach John Beilein, who (per the aforementioned article from the Cavs) will be the head coach in the SLC Summer League.

It’ll be intriguing to see how Porter, a 6-foot-five-and-a-half, 213-pound 2-guard/wing (per Tankathon) does in Summer League play.

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As our own Robbie DiPaola hit on, the 19-year-old new Cavalier is a player that could develop into a key contributor, but does not come without risk/needs more polish; he reportedly missed 12 games due to a combination of ankle and quad injuries (h/t Rotowire) and had a suspension in the middle of his one collegiate season at USC due to conduct issues, (as was reported by the Los Angeles Times‘ Brady McCollough).

I’ll be looking forward to seeing if Porter can use his athleticism in transition to finish strong near the rim or as a trailing three-point shooter (he shot 41.2% from three-point land at USC) in Summer League, and perhaps we’ll see some secondary (or even primary in spurts) playmaking from Porter.

Though he only averaged 9.5 points per game (though it was on an efficient 56.1% effective field goal shooting clip) and only started in four games, Porter has tons of potential.

It again is a big plus that Porter’s acquisition was made official before the Cleveland Cavaliers begin summer league, and with them in the SLC Summer League initially, and then potentially competing through July 15 in the Las Vegas Summer League, Porter might be able to showcase more of what he can do in the near future.

It’s unfortunate fans of the Cavaliers reportedly likely won’t be able to see Darius Garland (a player listed on the team’s SLC Summer League roster) in Summer League play at least in SLC, per Fedor, but it’s important that he’s fully ready to go at the beginning of the 2019-20 season, as he only played in five games in his college career at Vanderbilt (per Sports Reference), due to a reported meniscus tear.

Anyhow, Summer League is not regular season NBA play, but it’s still better to have Porter competing earlier on and be exposed to Beilein and likely other members of the Cavs’ coaching staff, such as Lindsay Gottlieb, who should be the head coach of the LV Summer League squad, than not doing so.

Statistics for this article were gathered from Sports Reference’s college basketball statistics.