Meaningful minutes with Cavs likely won’t be there at all for Matt Mooney

Two-way guard Matt Mooney will likely not have meaningful burn with the Cleveland Cavaliers next season.

It’s difficult to expect two-way contributors for the Cleveland Cavaliers, at least in a guard role, to get meaningful burn in 2020-21.

Cleveland’s one current two-way player is Matt Mooney, who was very productive in his time with the Cavs G-League affiliate in the Canton Charge in 2019-20.

With them, he had 13.9 points, 5.1 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game, per Basketball Reference’s G-League statistics. Going into 2020-21, at least currently, Mooney has Cleveland’s lone two-way spot.

Mooney, who was previously playing with the Memphis Hustle, the Memphis Grizzlies G-League affiliate, before the Charge, did commendable work with Canton, often in a primary playmaking role. Mooney is has nice ball-movement instincts, and has shown the ability to make his share of quality swings to shooters, and made plenty of quality dishes to cutters on the interior with good timing.

In addition, Mooney has continued to show he’s capable as a perimeter shooter with Canton, as he’s hit 36.4 percent of his three-point attempts. That’s similar to what he knocked down in college, which was 36.8 percent in stops at Air Force, South Dakota and Texas Tech.

Mooney has shown nice team defensive instincts in his time with Canton/in the G-League thus far as well. That’s led to him getting plenty of deflections/steals, which has helped the Charge generate easy buckets going the other way a fair amount, too.

Overall, Mooney has done a solid job for the Charge, and again most notably in terms of getting his teammates involved.

Pieces such as Levi Randolph, J.P. Macura and Dean Wade, who recently had his two-way deal converted to a multi-year standard contract by the Cavs (albeit next season/following is non-guaranteed), benefited from Mooney’s passing often.

That said, given Cavs players such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Kevin Porter Jr. playing big minutes in 2020-21/going forward, I wouldn’t expect Mooney to get much if any meaningful burn with Cleveland.

That’s hard to foresee for Mooney with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2020-21/maybe following.

Mooney’s two-way deal is set for multiple years, but with the Cavs, I wouldn’t imagine he’ll get meaningful minutes. Garland, Sexton, who was Cleveland’s leading scorer with 20.8 points per game in 2019-20, and Porter will again be the key guards, albeit Porter could get a fair amount of 3 burn also.

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Nonetheless, given that those three will seemingly get the bulk of the guard minutes next season, with Porter seemingly even getting some burn at the 1, unless key injuries happen, it’s hard to see Mooney getting meaningful run.

Sure, I could very well see him get some action in garbage time, as he did last season, but other than that, I don’t see there being minutes for Mooney, really.

Granted, Mooney did play 13 meaningful minutes of action at the Chicago Bulls in what was ultimately the Cavs’ last game of this now-past season for them, pre-novel coronavirus-induced hiatus.

In that one, though, Mooney, who was 0-2, seemed very hesitant to shoot when he was open in some instances on the perimeter.

Even while that was just one game, it didn’t help his case for occasional meaningful minutes in the near future, and I can’t label a knockdown shooter against pros, really.

Could Mooney make a good impression if the Cavs do participate in a second NBA bubble of non-Orlando teams, which could potentially take place in September in Chicago and feature four Summer League-type games, per ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan?

Perhaps, but again, I just don’t see the numbers being good for Mooney, and with Cleveland’s investment in Garland, who did get more comfortable as his rookie year progressed.

Also, with Porter showing plenty of flashes star potential coupled with Sexton’s all-around scoring, meaningful minutes for Mooney, and not garbage time minutes, are going to be very difficult to come by. I could very well see the Cavaliers re-signing Matthew Dellavedova eventually, too.

Delly is a nice reserve point guard option that led Cleveland in assists per game post-All-Star break with 5.5 when Garland was banged up, and could help KPJ behind-the-scenes in relation to development in some instances at the 1. Plus, Dante Exum, if he can stay healthier, while that is a big if, will feasibly get some burn as a defensive-minded guard.

Maybe Mooney will prove me wrong somewhat next season if Delly isn’t back, but it’s hard to see that playing out. We’ll see with Mooney more so down the road, though.