Cavs: One key 2020-21 goal for Jordan Bell, if he can stick around

It would seem tough for Jordan Bell to consistently get minutes with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but he could help defensively.

On Monday, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Jordan Bell agreed to a two-year deal, and according to reports, shortly before, Cleveland converted two-way player Dean Wade’s deal to a multi-year contract.

Wade’s deal will be team-friendly compensation for him for the remainder of 2019-20 at $375,000, at least from a payment standpoint, per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor. The following three years of Wade’s deal, starting in 2020-21, will be non-guaranteed, though.

Meanwhile, per Fedor, Bell will be paid $250,000 for the remainder of 2019-20, and the 2020-21 campaign’s deal will be non-guaranteed.

Neither of those moves were big ones for the Cavs, who added both on Monday with the NBA’s transaction window closing on Tuesday at 11:59 PM Eastern.

While it’s tough for me to see either becoming regular rotation contributors at this point, quite frankly, it is somewhat possible for Wade, who shot 39.9 percent from three-point land with the Canton Charge this now-past season. When the opportunities presented themselves a bit in games with Cleveland, though, Wade seemed way too hesitant to let it fly, which concerns me.

In Bell’s case, I’m also skeptical of him being able to be a viable bench contributor for Cleveland. He is not a shooter, and is not realistically a secondary playmaking-type big such as Larry Nance Jr., who has improved considerably as a three-point shooter off-the-catch, too.

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Bell is not the interior presence of Andre Drummond of course, either, who reportedly fully intends to pick up his $28.8 million player option, per his comments on a podcast appearance last week.

Even with the expiring Tristan Thompson seemingly having a good chance of not being back and even with Ante Zizic reportedly reaching an agreement with Spanish club Real Madrid, minutes still won’t be easy to come by for Bell.

That said, I could end up being wrong there, because while Bell, who has a career average of 3.8 points in 12.0 minutes per game, is not a notable offensive player, he does have nice team defensive instincts.

With that being the case, I see a reasonable goal for him for next season as coming to mind.

One key goal for Bell for 2020-21, if he can stick around, would be averaging 1.6 blocks per-36 minutes.

Again, I have my doubts about Bell being able to stick with the Cavs, but Fedor alluded to how he and Wade could both have a shot at making the squad, per Cavs executives.

In Bell’s case more so, the selling point for him is again his team defensive feel, and he has switchout ability, at least to a decent extent, in pick-and-roll coverage. Anyhow, for the key goal that jumps out to me for Bell for next season would be posting 1.6 blocks per-36 minutes for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Bell, while he’s not ideally what you want for a big and often playing the 5 previously in his career with the Golden State Warriors in his first two seasons, most notably, does time his contests well as a rotator. For his career, Bell has averaged 2.3 blocks per-36 minutes, which is pretty impressive for a player that’s not exactly played starting minutes.

Granted, before Bell was on the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2019-20 before he was dealt to the Houston Rockets, of whom dealt him to the Memphis Grizzlies, of whom shortly thereafter waived him, Golden State helped.

Nonetheless, Bell does have active hands, and is an instinctive helper, which has paid dividends for his squads as a rotator, which led to him making plays against opposing drivers.

If he can be a viable rotational big in some spurts for the Cavaliers in 2020-21, that’d be meaningful in helping out pieces such as Kevin Love, Collin Sexton and/or Kevin Porter Jr.

So where did I come up with that suggested key goal of 1.6 blocks per-36 minutes?

In 2019-20, Bell put up 1.4 blocks per-36, and if he can have a bit more than that in that metric, feasibly with a Cavs squad that will be playing a bunch of young pieces big minutes, that’d be respectable. It’d show he’s at least having some production and helping Cleveland’s team defense.

At the other end, I wouldn’t expect him to be filling it up, so that’d be decent for Bell in some meaningful minutes. Bell is a good offensive rebounder, too, though, and he could aid Cleveland’s offensive efforts to some extent in some rotational minutes in that regard as well.

Albeit sticking to the objective outlook, it’s difficult to say with conviction if Bell will even stick around next season with the Cavs. He’s not able to play the 3 position, and he’s not much of an scoring threat outside of occasional lobs/rolls.