Cavs: Damyean Dotson could provide instant offense in spurts

Damyean Dotson should provide a shooting boost for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It was pretty surprising that the New York Knicks did not extend guard/wing Damyean Dotson a qualifying offer, but the Cleveland Cavaliers made a sensible move in signing Dotson following that.

As a result of that lack of qualifying offer being extended to him by New York, Dotson was an unrestricted free agent up until he and the Cavs agreed to him signing via two-year, $4 million deal. The second season is reportedly non-guaranteed, for further context, though.

But for the Wine and Gold, this again was a nice move, as Dotson should help Cleveland’s spacing when he’s out there; we’ll have to see as far as the minutes-share, but Dotson should bring some pop off the bench.

Along those lines, to me, Dotson should aid the Cavs’ shooting efforts, and he could make a real difference in his rotational minutes in that way.

Dotson could provide instant offense in spurts for the Cavs.

Dotson was a player that, although his minutes-share was cut into from 2018-19 last season due to the arrival of RJ Barrett, often times gave the Knicks a spark off the bench. To drive it home further, that was in large part due to his shooting capabilities off-the-catch.

Even while much of the time the Knicks’ spacing was far from ideal, in the past two seasons, Dotson hit 36.8 and 36.2 percent from three-point range. That was on 4.7 and 3.4 three-point attempts on average in 27.5 and 17.4 minutes per game, and he had 10.7 points and 6.7 points per outing in those seasons, which was solid, honestly.

From my perspective, with how a combination of players such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Kevin Love and Dylan Windler could help him as spacers/ball-movers, I could very well foresee Dotson’s efficiency increasing, too.

But circling back, while we’ll have to see in terms of the rotational minutes for him seemingly mostly at the 2/some the 3, Dotson’s ability to hit perimeter looks off of movement/via spot-ups could really provide instant offense in spurts for Cleveland.

Just like Windler will display, and Love has, Dotson moves especially well without the ball, and with his constant activity in that way, I’d expect him to get plenty of looks off of JaVale McGee/Andre Drummond off-ball screens. The likes of Garland, Sexton, KPJ, Larry Nance Jr. and/or Windler should be able to hit Dotson in those instances regularly, too.

Dotson, who hit, also considering the often minimal spacing, a robust 38.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot triple attempts in 2019-20, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, could be an impact bench contributor, factoring in his shooting abilities.

Dotson, who can get some backdoor cutting finishes at times, too, as a counter to defenders going over off-ball screens set for him to prevent those, can also hit some step backs/pull backs on-ball.

I’d more so expect him to be more of an off-movement/floor spacing presence in his rotational minutes, but Dotson again can hit some step backs on-ball, as evidenced by him hitting 58.1 percent of those looks, per NBA.com’s shooting data.

Moreover, similarly to how I could see Dylan Windler as a shooter to some degree, and/or Kevin Porter Jr., though he’ll have a key on-ball offensive role, anyway, to me, it’s evident that Dotson could be an instant-offense type contributor for the Cavs in spurts.

And defensively, he’s fairly competent on-ball on the wing, and off-ball plays with great effort, too.

But to reiterate, I could foresee Dotson giving the Cavaliers offense plenty of pop in his rotational minutes-share on the floor.

He’s a knockdown shooter with very deep range, moves without the ball so well and frankly, should really help out Cleveland’s notable driving threats, such as Sexton, KPJ and Isaac Okoro, too, as another key floor spacer.