3 reasons Cavs should select Deni Avdija if he’s available in 2020 NBA Draft

#1: On-ball creation/scoring potential

The final reason why the Cleveland Cavaliers should select Avdija if he slides to the fifth overall pick is his offensive potential and scoring ability.

As previously mentioned, the Cavaliers offense was a wreck last season for a plethora of reasons. One of those being that there was not a clear secondary scorer that the team could rely on on a night-to-night basis.

Avdija has the potential to even eclipse Collin Sexton as the team’s leading scorer depending on how much of and how well his game will translate to the NBA, and that’s in relation down the road, in that sense.

One of these reasons is that Avdija looks like he could be an elite shot creator. With free agency being murky for the whole league, the Cavaliers will likely be going into the 2020-2021 season with the same team outside of the players they draft.

Even when considering recent reports of him being undecided in regards to his $28.7 million player option, Andre Drummond it still seems likely he’ll eventually exercise that and be back with the Cavs. Anyhow, it is likely that the Cavaliers, even with Deni potentially on the team, will still have trouble moving the ball around at times.

Having the ability to get a shot for himself along with his previously mentioned passing ability, it appears that Advija will be a real threat on the offensive side of the ball. When looking at his per 36-minute stats throughout his two-year career in the Euroleague, Avdija averaged 11.6 points per game, 6.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game and shot 31.6 percent from three-point range.

These are great stats considering that individual scoring in the Euroleague is typically low when compared to the NBA.

The big question mark is if last season was a slump of a year for Advija in terms of shooting or if he will be coming into the league without a shot. In his first season in the Euroleague, Advija shot 50.0 percent from deep and 100.0 percent from the free-throw line. Albeit the minutes-share was very small in that realm and in 2019-20, his percentages fell off a cliff.

His three-point percentage dropped to 27.7 percent and his free throw percentage went to 55.6 percent in an average of 14.3 minutes per outing.

If he is unable to develop a consistent jumper at the NBA level, Advija’s value would likely go from someone who could be a franchise player in the near future to someone who would be coming off of the bench. In that case, he’d be much less impactful looking onward.

But with the Cavs player development staff immensely helping the likes of Sexton, Osman and Larry Nance Jr. as shooters in recent seasons, the outlook could be very promising if Avdija were to be selected by Cleveland in the 2020 NBA Draft.