Cavs players that benefit most from Matthew Dellavedova’s return

Matthew Dellavedova will be invaluable for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Cleveland Cavaliers bringing Matthew Dellavedova back via team-friendly, veteran minimum deal for one-year, $2.1 million, was a sensible move.

Now, Dellavedova is not going to get a bunch of minutes regularly, and won’t likely be an every-game player. But when he is in there for the Cavaliers in a reserve role, I’d imagine mostly, barring injury, Dellavedova should still get his teammates involved in his minutes-share, initiate offense and provide good team defense.

Delly, who had clearly a career-low 3.1 points and ghastly 41.4 percent effective field goal shooting clip in 2019-20, albeit in also a career-low 14.4 minutes-share on average, won’t be much of a scorer threat.

That said, the Cavaliers are better off with him being back, and more so behind the scenes, from his presence in-game on the sidelines and/or in the film room/practice, assuredly.

So who might benefit the most among players from his re-signing, then?

We’ll highlight the Cavs players that benefit most from that here.

The key here, in regards to Dellavedova being back, is especially for young pieces, of which we’ll first hit on next.

And for just for clarification purposes, I’m going to loop these next three, if you will, in the same group, but I see Dellavedova’s return as being the most beneficial to them, of equal importance.

#1: Cavs guards Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Kevin Porter Jr.

For Darius Garland and Collin Sexton, Delly seems to have aided them as passers thus far. Garland’s passing feel/timing got better as his rookie year progressed, as evidenced by him averaging an improved 5.1 assists in his last 26 games active, as compared to his rookie clip of 3.9.

Garland, although the scoring/confidence as a shooter at times needs to take a step forward this next season, he seemed to be more poised in helping get the offense going/his teammates the ball in their preferred spots as his rookie year wore on. And I would imagine Delly’s presence behind the scenes, as an instinctive ball-mover/playmaker, aided Garland in that realm.

With Sexton, albeit his work ethic has never been in question, Dellavedova’s had to have rubbed off on Collin, Darius and other guys in a general sense, as KJG’s Robbie DiPaola previously touched on. It has I would imagine, too, and Sexton’s tireless work ethic is well-documented.

Along with that, though, Sexton, even with the playmaking splits not having been gaudy, did show growth as a passer as Year 2 for him played out, and being around Delly day-to-day/in the film room I’d think aided him there.

Sexton, for what it’s worth, did have a better 4.2 assists per outing in his last 15 games active leading into the league’s past novel coronavirus-induced hiatus/eventually what was the end of 2019-20 for Cleveland.

In terms of the third player in this trio that most benefits from Delly’s return, that’s Kevin Porter Jr.

Porter is not going to be a pass-first player for the Cavaliers, but his passing feel/willingness, off of drives, particularly, was very encouraging from his first season. Porter had an assist rate of 14.7 percent, and his last 12 games active, had an assist rate of 17.1 percent.

And to me, playing at times with Delly, similarly to Sexton’s case, to go with even more so behind the scenes, once again has to only aid Porter’s feel as a passer.

In addition, what plays into that more is that it’d seem that we’ll end up seeing KPJ at times as a lead playmaking-type player in Year 2, and having Dellavedova in his corner on the sidelines/in practice would only help with that sort of thing. That could be a nice wrinkle for stretches, too.

Along with the passing realm/timing for these three young guards for Cleveland, who should all have key roles, being around Dellavedova again for another season, seemingly, should aid their defensive development.

Delly is not the same on-ball perimeter defender he was previously, but his team defensive instincts/ability to navigate around off-ball screens should make for a meaningful defensive guard resource for Garland, Sexton and Porter next season, too.

Moving along, we’ll hit on #2, or at least the de facto #2..if you will.