Cavs players that benefit most from Matthew Dellavedova’s return

#2: Cavs big Kevin Love

The Cavs player that benefits the second-most from Delly’s re-signing, aside from those three young guards, of whom I considered #1 together, is Kevin Love. This is more so from a leadership standpoint.

Next season, it seems pretty clear that Dellavedova is not going to be an every game-type player, let alone be playing a significant chunk of minutes. Albeit from a leadership/locker room perspective, he’ll likely have a crucial role on a daily basis.

Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor in a recent report highlighted how Dellavedova is viewed as “an important culture piece” by the Cavs, and in that way, Love also comes to mind in a big way, too, to go with the young guards, of course.

In Love’s case, with Tristan Thompson now having signed with the Boston Celtics, Dellavedova, who was traded back to Cleveland in December of 2018 by the Milwaukee Bucks, is the last player left from Cleveland’s 2016 title team.

Dellavedova’s presence in the locker room, from a day-to-day/game-to-game/practice-to-practice type of way, should be again, invaluable for the Cavaliers this next season. And with Love, although others, such as Sexton himself, and Larry Nance Jr. it seems appear to involved, too, Dellavedova’s leadership/veteran guidance will really aid Love in his efforts as Cleveland’s likely primary leader.

Next season with TT gone, that will be crucial in helping K-Love aid the young guys in their development, and for players such as Andre Drummond, who hasn’t played much with the Cavs, in getting on the same page.

Plus, on the floor, Dellavedova, when he’s out there with Love for spurts, should generate his share of quality looks for Love.

Love is fresh off hitting 37.4 percent of his career-high 7.0 three-point attempts last season, and Delly, when he’s on with Kevin, knows where to get him the ball on-time and on-target for knockdown opportunities off-the-catch.

Dellavedova is also adept at hitting Love when he’s cutting to counter defenders closing off his catch-and-shoot looks, to go with getting Love feeds in the mid-post and/or via drop offs in secondary transition as a trailer at times.

Even with his minutes being spotty to a large extent in 2019-20, Dellavedova trailed only Cedi Osman in assists to Love among Cavs players last season, per NBA.com’s shooting data, with 41.

Lastly, we’ll hit on #3.