Cleveland Cavaliers: Five takeaways from their 2019-20 media day

Larry Nance Jr. could take another leap this year

Nance had a career season in 2018-19, as he had bests across the board, really, in points (9.4), rebounds (8.2), assists (3.2) and steals (1.5), with his workload being the biggest of his NBA tenure (26.8 minutes per game, per Basketball Reference), in large part due to unfortunate injuries to Love and Thompson.

Under Beilein, it seems that Nance could feasibly be in for another leap in production in the 2019-20 season.

He’s a player that is the Cavs’ best all-around big, and with Beilein wanting to maximize spacing and have bigs that can be viable playmakers on the floor, it’s understandable that according to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, Nance would seemingly have a good chance of starting most games for Cleveland this season.

Taking that into consideration and based on his comments at the team’s media day on Monday, I would think that Nance’s game could be in for another leap this year, too.

Nance, who is more of a realistic shooting threat than John Henson, and absolutely more than the non-shooter in Thompson, shot a respectable 33.7% from three-point land in 2018-19 (per NBA.com) in the first season where he really tried to shoot those on a game-to-game basis.

He continued to work on that a ton this offseason, which I’d think should bode well next year.

He even said during this summer, he “probably shot 20,000 3’s at Cleveland Clinic Courts,” per the Akron Beacon Journal/Ohio.com’s Marla Ridenour.

Nance also said that he’s going to be playing more on the wing and “less on the block” in Beilein’s offense, which likely fits right in line with the player development mindset Cleveland has moving forward.

Here’s what Nance said in relation to that perimeter-oriented play for him, again, per Davies.

Nance led qualified Cavaliers in assists per game in 2018-19 (per NBA.com), and though I’d personally rather that not be the case this season and would hope pieces such as Collin Sexton in his second season, or Garland, lead Cleveland in that metric this year, I could see Nance’s playmaking be an even bigger part of the Cavs’ offense in the near future.

Additionally, Nance is Cleveland’s best team defender with his ability to cut off driving lanes well, hedge out to contest shooters while getting back to tag rollers, and make plays in passing lanes.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lead the Cavs in steals again in 2019-20, and per Davies, Nance hit on how he wants to be “one of the league leaders in steals this year.”

Moreover, Nance had a big year in 2018-19, and with him having a very productive offseason, it’s understandable that at the team’s media day, he stressed that he expects to take another leap forward this year, which is something the Cavs would obviously love to see, too.