Matthew Dellavedova being back with the Cleveland Cavaliers is reassuring.
I know, I know, I know. Matthew Dellavedova‘s recent re-signing by the Cleveland Cavaliers via one-year, veteran minimum deal (reportedly for $2.1 million) was not making any national headlines.
But the Cavs bringing Dellavedova back for next season was a wise decision, as though he’s not the on-ball guard defender he was before, Dellavedova is still fairly competent in reserve minutes in that realm and he’s a heady team defender.
On the offensive end, Dellavedova is still a highly intuitive passer that gets his teammates involved so well, and helps stabilize operations when he’s in games. Albeit Delly’s shot last season from three-point range via spot-ups fell off a cliff, and his altered shooting motion, to a large extent, did not pay dividends for him.
Dellavedova hit a career-worst 23.1 percent of his three-point attempts in 2019-20, which although he hit 33.6 percent from deep in 2018-19 with Cleveland after being acquired back via trade from the Milwaukee Bucks, was much more capable previously on catch-and-shoots.
And while he played just 14.4 minutes per outing last season, also a career-low, he still had just 3.1 points per game. So the dude was not putting the ball in the basket himself much, aside from floaters/push shots it seemed, to a degree.
In any case, Delly being brought back via team-friendly deal was still a smart move by Cleveland, I believe. Dellavedova, even with the shooting woes last year, did have a near-career-best 7.9 assists per-36 minutes, and although the minutes-share wasn’t high, he did lead Cleveland in assist rate at 29.7 percent.
Nonetheless, when taking players such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Kevin Porter Jr., who is seemingly bound to play a decent amount as a 1 for stretches, and to an extent, Dante Exum, into account, Delly won’t play much game-to-game.
That said, he’s still a competent reserve playmaker to have when needed, and he’ll again be a tremendous locker room presence to have around. So what’s a reasonable outlook for him for next season, then, you ask?
Here, we’ll hit on two realistic expectations for Delly for the Cavs in 2020-21.
We’ll get into #1 next.