Cleveland Cavaliers: Where Larry Nance Jr. ranks against other starting PFs

Next up in the KJG starting rankings, we have projected Cleveland Cavaliers starting power forward Larry Nance Jr.

The Cleveland Cavaliers made it clear when they reportedly signed Larry Nance Jr. to a four-year, $44.8 million contract extension (contract numbers per Spotrac) before the 2018-19 season that he’s likely a key part of their core in coming years.

Nance is a player that has been primarily a bench contributor in his career to this point, but it seems as though he’s going to be starting power forward the majority of games for the Cavaliers in 2019-20, with Kevin Love likely manning the center role to start most games, according to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

Nance is a player that has played both the 4 and 5 a good amount in his career to this point, but it seems that he is more than capable of doing either for Cleveland.

In 2018-19, as KJG contributors have often referenced, Nance had a career year for the Cavs, as he had bests in scoring (9.4), rebounds (8.2), assists (3.2) and steals per game, per Basketball Reference.

Part of that was undoubtedly due to Cavaliers’ bigs Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson missing a combined 99 games due to reported injuries last year, but either way, Nance was very good for Cleveland.

As a player that is now an integral part of their core, seemingly alongside Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Love, and I would think at least Darius Garland, I’d think that Nance’s production could be on the uptick in 2019-20, too, with him as a likely starter now in most games, per Fedor.

So where does Nance stack up against the other projected starter power forwards in the NBA in 2019-20? We’ll get into it now.