Cavaliers reportedly agree to non-guaranteed deal with Jarell Martin

The Cleveland Cavaliers have reportedly agreed to a one-year, non-guaranteed deal with Jarell Martin, a big who has four years of NBA experience between the Memphis Grizzlies and Orlando Magic.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have not had the most action-packed offseason when it comes to free agency, as we’ve often emphasized here at KJG, because of their salary cap limitations.

They have currently 13 players set to be on the 2019-20 regular season roster at this point, and the team has currently one of its two-way spots filled at the moment with inside-out scoring developmental big Dean Wade.

Along with that, though, Cleveland has been steadily filling out its training camp roster spots.

As we’ve touched on, the Cavaliers have reportedly agreed to Exhibit 10 deals with J.P. Macura and Marques Bolden (so essentially non-guaranteed deals where players could potentially go down to play with Cleveland’s G-League affiliate, the Canton Charge or maybe one of the team’s two-way players), and a non-guaranteed deal with Sindarius Thornwell.

Now on Friday, it was also reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the Cleveland Cavaliers have agreed to a one year, non-guaranteed deal (very similar to the others) with 25-year-old big Jarell Martin (spell it right, Woj, jeez).

Martin is a player that has four years of NBA experience, with three being with the Memphis Grizzlies and last year appearing with the Orlando Magic after he was reportedly traded there last summer; the Magic declined a qualifying offer for him (per the Orlando Sentinel‘s Roy Parry and h/t Bleacher Report’s Megan Armstrong) and made him an unrestricted free agent this offseason after he had just 2.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in only 7.8 minutes per game in 42 appearances with Orlando in 2018-19, per NBA.com.

In his NBA tenure, the 6-foot-10 Martin has averages of 5.4 points on 47.0% effective field goal shooting, to go with 3.5 rebounds in 15.9 minutes per game (per Basketball Reference).

69% of his minutes on the floor thus far in the league have been at the 4 position, while almost all of the others have been at the 5 (again, per Basketball Reference), for reference.

The reason for this training camp signing, though, is I would imagine, because Martin is a decent shooting big with spot-ups.

While he was not a key fixture in Memphis’ rotation until his third season, he did at least show some ability as a three-point shooting big, as he had a 34.7% hit rate on 98 attempts in 2017-18, which was almost identical to what Larry Nance Jr. did from three-point land in 2018-19 (where he went 33-98, and both per Basketball Reference).

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That being said, though Martin is a decent rebounder (7.9 rebounds per-36 minutes), and interior defender and has flashed some rotational shot blocking when he’s been given minutes (a block rate of 2.3%, and both per Basketball Reference), he’s not a player that’s able to switch in pick-and-roll a bit, like Nance can to a degree, and it’s not as if he’s a big-time floor-spacer or anything.

If he had been that type of big, he’d have played more in Orlando last year.

I also wouldn’t see him commanding minutes over Ante Zizic, either, as Zizic is a better roller and has pretty good post polish.

Plus, with Thornwell being a player Cleveland head coach John Beilein can throw in for some meaningful minutes as a wing defender next year to help the Cavs’ young guards in Collin Sexton and Darius Garland, and with Bolden showing rim protection ability at Duke and in Summer League for the Cavs and being only 21, I don’t see Martin as having a realistic shot at a Cleveland two-way spot or a roster spot.

As Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor has highlighted often, the Cleveland Cavaliers will likely enter the 2019-20 season having an open 15th roster spot.

So again, I don’t see this Martin training camp deal as realistically having much of an impact.

For now, as Fedor also noted, Cleveland essentially has three training camp roster spots left.

I highly doubt we’ll be seeing Martin in late October in a Wine and Gold regular season uniform, but if injuries happen in the preseason and he is red-hot as a spot-up threat, maybe he will be.