Cavs: Damyean Dotson 2-year deal should help shooting efforts

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Damyean Dotson reportedly agreed to a two-year deal.

While it’s not been a free agency period that’s led to huge fireworks for the Cleveland Cavaliers, they weren’t set to be too active, anyhow. That was after Andre Drummond ended up picking up his $28.7 million player option last week, which seemed likely all along.

The Cavs agreed to terms on a two-way deal with undrafted free agent Lamar Stevens following Wednesday’s 2020 NBA Draft, and they did via Exhibit 10 deal with undrafted free agent Charles Matthews, too. We’ll see how things shake out with those players.

Additionally, though, the Cavaliers landed backup 5 JaVale McGee and a future second-round pick in a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, of which you can view the reported details here.

In terms of the latest, it was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski that the Cavs and unrestricted free agent Damyean Dotson agreed on two-year, $4 million deal on Monday. Dotson was not extended a qualifying offer by New York, which made him unrestricted.

So what could Dotson provide in minutes for the Cavs?

The Cavs were factoring in Dotson’s perimeter shooting.

The key takeaway with this signing of Dotson, who had 6.7 points in 17.4 minutes per game last season, is how he should aid Cleveland’s shooting efforts, off-the-catch, and really, off-movement, in particular. When Dotson was in the game with the New York Knicks in his first three NBA seasons, he showed he’s more than capable of hitting catch-and-shoot looks from beyond the arc.

Dotson hit 36.2 percent of his 3.4 three-point attempts per outing in 2019-20, and 36.8 percent of his 4.7 deep attempts per contest in 2018-19 with New York. That was in his first two seasons getting regular minutes, really; Dotson, for context, was a second-round draft selection in 2017 by the Knicks.

Anyway, while that three-point shooting clip may not completely pop out, let’s keep in mind that in Dotson’s time with the Knicks, for much of it at least, there was hardly a plethora of floor spacers.

But what I’m sure the Cleveland Cavaliers were really drawn to in regards to Dotson is his again, ability to hit shots off of movement in settled offense. That could make stretches with him and Dylan Windler, who does that well, too, especially intriguing. ESPN’s Zach Lowe was on-point in highlighting that strength of Dotson’s game.

Dotson could make his presence felt in rotational minutes for Cleveland by knocking down spot-ups from drive-and-kicks from the likes of Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr., Collin Sexton and Isaac Okoro, of course.

But in coming around screens/hitting off staggers/pin-downs, he could really have an impact, too. The recently-acquired McGee could aid Dotson and the Cavs offense in that regard for the latter as a catch-and-shoot threat as well, to go with Andre Drummond, Kevin Love and Larry Nance Jr.

In relation to the on-ball possibilities, Dotson has improved as a finisher some, but I wouldn’t expect him to be much of a source of on-ball creation, which is honestly fine.

That said, he does have a stepback game as a pretty good counter to his catch-and-shoot acumen at times in rotational minutes, and Dotson hit an impressive 58.1 percent of those attempts in 2019-20, per NBA.com’s shooting data.

When it comes to the defensive end, I’m not going to suggest that Dotson’s going to have a significant impact in his minutes-share there, though.

The 6-foot-5 guard/wing in Dotson isn’t a notable on-ball defender, though he seemingly make some strides in terms of his off-ball rotational feel last season with the Knicks.

But he gives great effort on that end of the floor, and defensive pieces such as a heady team defender in Windler, a rim protector in McGee and an all-around defensive chess piece in Okoro could help out Dotson there to an extent.

Moreover, to me, this was a nice free agency move by the Cavaliers to me to, most notably, help out their perimeter shooting/floor spacing efforts.

Dotson’s off-movement play/activity in settled offense could give Cleveland head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company a spark in rotational guard minutes and/or to help spell Sexton some. I’d bet Dotson’s three-point shooting clip goes up some with the Cavs.

As it stands currently, Cleveland has 13 rostered players after this Dotson deal, for reference, which is two away from the max of 15.