Cavs: Why Dylan Windler can lead team in bench scoring in 2019-20
By Dan Gilinsky
Reason #2: The adjustment might not be all that rough for Windler
Windler comes into the league already at 22, and though he is only a rookie, the adjustment might not be as much for him as a bench piece that had four years of collegiate experience and has played a bunch of basketball.
Considering with the Cleveland Cavaliers being in a full-rebuild and them seemingly having to feature a Darius Garland-Collin Sexton backcourt to start the majority of their games to see how they can coexist, and with Porter potentially taking longer to adjust to the NBA game (though just like Garland, who only appeared in fives games in college at Vanderbilt, per Sports Reference), I would think Beilein and the coaching staff would be more comfortable playing Windler big minutes right away, and numbers should come for him as a scorer and potentially as a rebounder/occasional secondary playmaker.
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I’d think as the year progresses, Windler will grow more and more comfortable in timing up off-ball screens from Zizic, and/or become more in-tune with timing up of receiving dribble handoffs from Nance.
Along with that, Windler probably will not need the ball in his hands a whole lot to get production, especially when matched up against bench wings/possibly small-ball 4’s, whereas other pieces on Cleveland, such as Porter, who I’m not sure could be comfortable in an off-ball role a good amount in year one (and could be up-and-down overall), and Knight, will need the ball in their hands a fair amount to score a notable amount and have a tangible impact in games offensively.
Nance, who was one of Cleveland’s key primary bench contributors last year, also could feasibly start the majority of the time this season to help floor spacing, according to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, for the record, so I don’t see him in the leading bench scoring running for now.
Now to the third reason why I could see Windler, if given enough minutes, could lead qualified Cavs in bench scoring in 2019-20.