Three former Cleveland Cavaliers players to root for in Orlando

A former Cleveland Cavaliers player to root for in Orlando: Jordan Clarkson

Lastly, the other former Cav that stands out as one to root for in Orlando is Jordan Clarkson. Clarkson was traded to the Utah Jazz by the Cavs in December in large part due to his expiring deal, but I’ll always be a huge fan of his.

In his time with the Cavaliers, of which was highlighted by him leading the squad in scoring in 2018-19 with 16.8 points per game, he got buckets off the bench. That was a career-high to this point for Clarkson, too.

In his 138 regular season games with the Wine and Gold, dating back to him being acquired near the 2018 trade deadline, JC averaged 15.5 points per outing. Frankly, though he was not always a glowing example of ball movement, Clarkson’s ability to make bailout-type shots was unreal to watch on plenty of occasions.

The dude is a heck of a three-level scorer, and thus far with the Jazz, Clarkson has been quite the microwave bench scorer. He’s put up 15.6 points per outing, fully leaning into that role more, which has helped out Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles and company in their efforts.

Plus, Clarkson, who was showing this more early on in 2019-20 in playing off Sexton and others, has been a great catch-and-shoot three-point threat for Utah, a squad that’s currently the West’s fourth seed.

With the Jazz, he’s hit 36.6 percent from downtown, and on the year, he’s hit a career-high 36.8 percent from deep. That’s also been on a career-high in volume with 5.6 attempts per contest, per Basketball Reference.

Hopefully for JC’s sake, he proves himself this go-round on the postseason stage, which he did not in his first postseason appearance with the Cavs.

Albeit I’m grateful for how Clarkson, especially in 2018-19, gave the Cavs everything he had and always produced. His passing feel/ability to make extra passes has seemed to improve this season, too, and I credit him for that.

Also, more importantly, let’s hope that Clarkson and the Jazz, and the rest of this league is getting healthy.

Per the league and as h/t FanSided, 16 of 302 players that were tested on June 23 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The season’s suspension in early/mid-March came after Rudy Gobert was the first NBA player to test positive for COVID-19, and Mitchell soon after tested positive as well.

Anyhow, to me, these aforementioned three former Cleveland Cavaliers players are very easy to root for in Orlando, and I’ll be keyed into seeing how they do.