Cavs: Damyean Dotson should be able to get going more soon

Damyean Dotson hasn’t been able to really hit his stride for the Cleveland Cavaliers just yet.

We haven’t seen it just yet for the Cleveland Cavaliers in this early portion of the season, but Damyean Dotson should aid Cleveland’s shooting efforts. While Dotson won’t be a starting-type player, he, I believe, will be a quality reserve for the Cavs to have, feasibly for instances at the 2/3.

We’ll of course have to see in relation to Dotson when Kevin Porter Jr. is back in the fold for Cleveland; he didn’t appear in preseason, nor has he played yet in the regular season, due to personal reasons.

Nonetheless, I still foresee Dotson as being a player that the Cavs coaching staff will look to utilize, and I’d imagine he’ll grow comfortable in due time with his new squad. Dotson, who played for the New York Knicks in his first three seasons, and was signed by the Cavs before this season, hasn’t started off too well as a shooter in his run, admittedly, though.

Thus far in 2020-21, he’s had 3.3 points per contest on 38.5 percent shooting, and has hit 33.3 percent from three-point range. That’s been in four appearances, out of five games for Cleveland, in which Dotson played an average of 19.1 minutes per appearance.

To me, though, I wouldn’t expect those shooting woes for Dotson to continue, to a large extent, much longer, and I’d think Cleveland should be able to get him more off-movement/spot-up looks sooner rather than later.

Dotson should be able to get going more soon for the Cavs.

Dotson, despite the slow start, has the makings of a high level rotational shooter for Cleveland. He knocked in 36.8 and 36.2 percent from three-point range the past two seasons with New York on 4.7 and 3.4 attempts per outing, respectively, and frankly, Cavs fans shouldn’t be overly concerned.

On the plus side for Dotson, he’s hit 42.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot three-point attempts, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, to begin this season for the Cavaliers. As he gets more burn alongside guys like Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Larry Nance Jr., I’d expect them to know how to get him involved/get him quality looks coming off screens/via spot-ups after drive-and-kicks.

We’ve seen him get some of those here, and Dotson’s had a 53.8 percent frequency in relation to those catch-and-shoot triples. Considering he’s knocked in those on a very efficient clip so far, that’s an encouraging sign for him, though.

That said, Dotson hasn’t seemingly been able to get into a good rhythm yet with his pull-ups/step backs, as on a frequency of 30.8 percent, his effective field goal shooting clip has only been 25.0 percent, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data.

Granted, that’s amounted to 1.0 shot attempts per contest, whereas the catch-and-shoot deep balls have been 1.8 per game. Dotson is obviously not going to be nearly the on-ball offensive scoring presence of Garland, Sexton, or perhaps KPJ when he’s back, anyhow.

I’d still expect him, soon enough here, such as during the rest of this Cavs’ road trip, to grow more comfortable with the Wine and Gold on the offensive end, however, and I’d think we could see him get some occasional pick-and-roll work.

He proved to be effective as a PnR scorer when he was given those opportunities with the Knicks last season, and I believe in some sequences with JaVale McGee, and/or Nance, for instance, we could very well see Dotson get going more in that way. That could relieve some burden for Garland and Sexton, also.

Lastly, I’d think we could definitely see, in terms of the movement realm, some cutting looks for Dotson, leading to some in-rhythm push shots curling around screens, and/or some baseline cuts after pin-downs.

Moreover, it’s just a matter of time, before we’ll see Dotson get going more the Cavs.

He’s getting his bearings at this point in set offense, and with his ability to create for himself off-the-bounce, via step-backs/pull-backs and in-rhythm pull-ups to counter hard closeouts, his efficiency/production, should steadily improve.

On another positive note, though, he’s made some heady extra passes at times, although some rough turnovers have come from lack of familiarity, but on defense, in particular, his on-ball play has looked good.

Albeit swinging back, there’s little-to-no reason about Dotson’s shot five games into the season with him on a new team, to reiterate.