Cavs: Dylan Windler could help free up Alfonzo McKinnie more

Alfonzo McKinnie could be a Cleveland Cavaliers player that’d benefit from Dylan Windler on the floor with him some next season.

Looking at next season, it’s evident that Alfonzo McKinnie is mostly a defensive rotational piece for the Cleveland Cavaliers. McKinnie did a pretty solid job on-ball against 3’s and 4’s in his minutes on the floor last season, and though he is set to be a non-guaranteed deal following the formal end of 2019-20 for coming years, I’d think there’s a good possibility McKinnie could stick around.

McKinnie is probably not an every-night type of piece, but as a player with good team defensive instincts, he could give Cleveland some productive defensive minutes and help against 3’s/4’s. McKinnie is a player that’s active in passing lanes, too, as evidenced by him averaging 1.4 steals per-36 minutes in 2019-20 for the Cavs.

Offensively, it’s clear that McKinnie is not a floor spacer, and last season, he hit only 21.5 percent of his 1.6 three-point attempts per game. McKinnie is not a piece you rely on to create his own offense in his minutes on the floor, either, as through 126 career games, McKinnie has averaged 4.3 points per outing, mostly with the Golden State Warriors and last year, the Cavs.

That said, McKinnie is an instinctive cutter, and is a good finisher, and one piece, in particular, in some minutes on the floor, could help McKinnie.

Looking at 2020-21, I’d imagine that McKinnie could be freed up some with Dylan Windler in the fold for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

McKinnie is again not a piece that you’d expect to be a key bucket-getting presence in his rotational minutes for the Cavs, to further emphasize. But I again think he could very well stick around as a defensive piece, primarily against 3’s and 4’s at 6-foot-7.

I firmly believe that McKinnie, when the two would be set to be on the floor together in some stretches, though, could be freed up more with Dylan Windler on the floor with him. That’d be realistically with Windler at the 2 or 3 and McKinnie at the 3 or 4, for context.

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Windler of course did not appear at all in 2019-20 for the Cleveland Cavaliers due to complications regarding a stress reaction in his lower left leg, but Windler is progressing well and said he’s “feeling good,” per a recent report from Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

I expect to see Windler be a meaningful contributor in 2020-21, too, at least in a rotational role, I’d think after some time after gets his legs under him.

In McKinnie’s case, though he wouldn’t be set to play nearly the amount of minutes alongside Windler such as say, Kevin Porter Jr. or Larry Nance Jr., McKinnie could again be freed up by Windler, at least to some extent.

Windler hit 40.6 percent of his 534 attempts from three-point range in a four-year collegiate career at Belmont, and the off-movement/off screen, spot-up and pull-up shooting element he could provide could aid McKinnie as a cutter/occasional driving threat.

McKinnie has shown that some straight-line driving ability, and he does have good body control as a finisher when he is decisive in going to the basket as a cutter.

In terms of off-ball more so, though, the attention Windler could feasibly draw if he’s mostly healthy next season with his shooting polish could lead to a decent share of McKinnie cutting opportunities, or Windler could feed him along the baseline after receiving drop-offs. McKinnie could also receive some occasional passes near the rim from Windler after timely cuts, and McKinnie is a real above-the-rim threat, also involving lobs from KPJ, for instance.

Granted, if McKinnie could be more respectable from deep next season at least from the corner, that’d be a positive, and it’d make extra passes from a capable ball-mover in Windler after initial kickouts from Darius Garland or KPJ more productive, for example.

Anyway, in rotational minutes next season together at times (McKinnie played 14.8 minutes per game in 2019-20), I’d imagine a polished all-around shooter and also good cutter/nice secondary playmaker himself in Windler could help free up McKinnie more.

That’s at least to some degree, from my perspective, and a heady team defender and rotator in McKinnie could aid Windler to some extent from a communication/stunting perspective on the other end.

Moreover, I firmly believe Windler should mesh with a variety of Cleveland Cavaliers pieces next season and aid Cleveland looking onward, if he’s mostly healthy.