It would seem that Matthew Dellavedova could be back with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but that’s not a certainty.
In Matthew Dellavedova‘s five-year tenure with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he accomplished a lot with the team. Dellavedova, or “Delly” for short, was signed by the Cavaliers just before the beginning of the 2013-14 NBA season after going undrafted. Delly would immediately get playing time on the team and improved every season.
He would make a name for himself in the 2015 NBA Finals after he would put up 20/5/4 against the MVP at the time in Stephen Curry. This game helped give the Cavs a 2-1 series lead and turned Delly into a fan favorite.
Delly and the Cavs would end up winning a championship in 2016 and Delly would take advantage of this, cashing in on a four-year, $38.5-million dollar deal with the Milwaukee Bucks. The Cavaliers would end up trading for Delly as part of a package in the 2018-19 season, though, and once again, the expiring Delly is set to be an unrestricted free agent.
Delly’s market probably won’t be much this upcoming free agency period, but, he may look to sign with a contender this offseason.
If Delly is to leave, that would leave the Cavaliers without a definitive backup point guard and this is a position that they will have to address. Although Dellavedova had his worst season as a shooter, realistically last season and only had 3.1 points per contest and shot by far a career-low 23.1 percent from three-point range, he did lead Cleveland in assist rate at 29.7 percent and he is still a solid team defender.
But again, he could end up signing elsewhere this offseason, even while he could feasibly be back, one would think, via team-friendly deal. That’d be seemingly as a mentor-type for Darius Garland/others/more so an insurance guard piece, for instance.
With that said, here, we will look at two potential players who could replace Delly for next season and beyond for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
We’ll begin with an in-house potential replacement for Dellavedova.