Looking at the offseason, it’s not a well-kept secret that the Cleveland Cavaliers could use another primary playmaker in a role off the bench. It seems apparent that Matthew Dellavedova, who is not much of a scoring threat anymore, and was hampered by injury last season, is extremely unlikely to return.
Now, a potential player such as 2021 NBA Draft prospects in Jalen Suggs, Scottie Barnes in a point forward role, Davion Mitchell or Franz Wagner could aid Cleveland in that way, too.
Barnes, in particular, intrigues me the most of those players, but having a veteran as a backup primary playmaker would be a sound move in the offseason by the Cavs, in a general sense, to help Darius Garland, and to an extent, Collin Sexton.
A few free agent names I believe that could be sensible in that way are T.J. McConnell, Patty Mills, Alex Caruso, perhaps Ish Smith and to while it’d be more so a defensive add, Frank Ntilikina could be competent in that area, somewhat.
From my perspective, McConnell, of that group, would be the ideal target/free agent acquisition for the Cavaliers. And for what it’s worth, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com touched on how a potential free agency list for Cleveland “should start” with McConnell and Caruso. That’s reportedly as non-taxpayer mid-level exception targets, of which is likely set to be roughly $10 million.
Fedor then stated in a report/set of mailbag responses, how some within the Cavs prefer McConnell, whereas some prefer Caruso; to me, though, I’d lean McConnell.
Now, on the MLE subject, I don’t frankly think the likes of either McConnell or Caruso would cost the full MLE, and Cleveland could feasibly compensate Dean Wade (who is non-guaranteed from here though) and Lamar Stevens additionally.
McConnell could seemingly be had for say, $6-7 million of the MLE, and I would think Damyean Dotson and Mfiondu Kabengele, who are both non-guaranteed, not being back, could aid in the MLE formalities, anyhow.
Regardless, it does seem realistic that McConnell, given the Indiana Pacers’ current situation, similarly to potential Cavs free agent target Doug McDermott, could very well look to sign elsewhere in unrestricted free agency. And admittedly, McConnell is likely the better target.
Along those lines, McConnell could aid the Cavs in a variety of ways, and we’ll focus on three here.
The first relates to the aforementioned playmaking.
#1: McConnell would provide good bench playmaking for the Cavs
As we hit on, the Cavaliers could really use a viable bench playmaker, assuming Dellavedova is not back, and that would appear to be a near-foregone conclusion.
McConnell, in that realm, has been a quality bench playmaker throughout his career, of which was with the Philadelphia 76ers in his first four seasons, and in the last two with the Pacers. In 22.1 minutes per game in his career, he’s had 5.0 assists per outing, and has had 8.2 assists to only 2.6 turnovers per-36 minutes.
He’s been Dellavedova-like in that way, and similarly to Dellavedova, when Delly has been able to be in there for the Cavs, McConnell does a nice job hitting bigs in pick-and-roll, and is timely with his feeds to cutters. Jarrett Allen/Isaiah Hartenstein (assuming they’re back) could work really well with McConnell as rollers, for instance.
Along with that, McConnell does a good job of initiating ball-swings for shooters in early offense, and he’s more than capable of hitting skip and hook passes out of pick-and-roll for pick-and-pop threats or shooters on the weak side. That’d be meaningful for players such as Sexton, Kevin Love/Dean Wade and others, such as Dylan Windler.
So, to reiterate, a veteran such as McConnell, who has always been durable, too, could take burden off Garland in a sizeable way in minutes-share off the bench, and one would assume Cleveland recognizes that first off.
Secondly, we’ll discuss how McConnell would help the Cavaliers defense.
#2: How McConnell would help the Cavs defense
The 6-foot-1 McConnell is a solid defender against opposing point guards, and with the style of defense he plays, is a 94-feet-of-annoyance-type defender in that way. As a result, he’s typically capable of setting the tone in his minutes in that realm, and it can take opponents out of rhythm, and cause them to have trouble getting into their set offense.
That sort of thing could really make a difference for spurts/stretches for the Cavaliers, and it could enable them to jump their share of passing lanes and/or really get into opposing shooters.
He’d help the squad’s team defense in his bench minutes, and feasibly at times if injuries occurred, as a spot starter, too.
In terms of the team defensive sense, Larry Nance Jr., when healthy, has proven to be one of the league’s more impactful disruptors in passing lanes, and had he played more, would’ve qualified as likely being in the top three among league leaders in steals per game last season. The same would’ve went in relation to deflections per game; Nance was fourth in that metric, for one, at 3.4, per NBA.com’s player hustle data.
On that subject, though, McConnell was second in steals per contest last season at 1.9, and third in deflections per game at 3.5.
So clearly, similarly to Nance, albeit from a guard’s standpoint, McConnell’s feel for playing passing lanes and getting deflections could allow the Cavs to get their share of transition looks going the other way in stretches, and that’d give Cleveland energy in games.
It’d lead to opponents perhaps at times being more deterred from hitting skip feeds, and with Jarrett Allen behind him, McConnell with his ball pressure could seemingly take opponents out of rhythm and/or speed them up, too.
So, overall, if the Cavs were to sign him in upcoming free agency, of which is set to begin on August 6, it’s apparent that they’d be getting an impact defender off the bench in the 29-year-old McConnell.
Moving on, last but not least, McConnell could provide Cleveland with another nice pull-up shooter/driver.
#3: McConnell would help the Cavs as a pull-up/push shot/floater player
Lastly, while McConnell is not a three-point shooter per se (a 32.7 percent shooter from there on just 0.7 attempts per outing lifetime), he is a good pull-up shooter in the mid-range and can make things happen on drives.
For his career, McConnell has hit 48.6 percent of his shot attempts from 10-16 feet on a frequency of 24.2 percent, and most of those have been via pull-ups, seemingly. Last season, that clip was a tremendous hit rate of 55.4 percent on a 18.8 percent frequency.
So, although mid-range shots aren’t ideal in today’s league, McConnell being such a polished mid-range shooter and efficient in that area could still lead to quality possessions for Cleveland, in which he could very well can in-rhythm looks.
That sort of thing could help steady the offense, whereas with Dellavedova, his basically complete lack of shooting could unfortunately hamper his impact when he was available, and McConnell’s mid-range touch only aids him further as a playmaker and pick-and-roll ball handler.
As a PnR scorer last season, he placed in the 72nd percentile, per Synergy Sports, and on a frequency of 32.9 percent, had a field goal percentage of 55.7.
Along with the mid-range touch though, McConnell is a pretty capable push shot/floater player, and also with the PnR abilities factored in some, the veteran has hit 49.5 percent of his shot attempts from 3-10 feet on a frequency of 26.3 percent over his six seasons. Furthermore, in his last two seasons, he’s hit 57.0 and 54.5 percent of his shot attempts in that area on a 24.3 and 34.1 percent frequency.
So, clearly, while again he’s not a three-point shooter, with the polish McConnell has a pull-up threat in the mid-range and with his great touch on push shots/floaters and at times fadeaways here and there, he could provide some bench scoring game-to-game for Cleveland, too. That again could help take some pressure off of Garland, and Sexton to a degree, for that matter.
Moreover, to me, the 29-year-old McConnell, who had 8.6 points, 6.6 assists and 3.7 rebounds in 26.0 minutes per outing last season with Indiana, would be a heck of a free agent acquisition that’d really make things happen off the bench.