Cleveland Cavaliers: 2 goals for Lamar Stevens in 2021-22

#2: Apply rim pressure in spurts for the Cavs, but show some viability on corner threes/help a bit with ball movement

As we touched on, Stevens is not much of a catch-and-shoot threat at this juncture. He didn’t show much three-point shooting at Penn State, nor did he last season with the Cavaliers.

From a positive outlook though, Stevens did get through gaps as a driver fairly well, and his cutting feel improved as last season progressed.

Plus, I did think his finishing was a bright spot, both in settled situations to some extent and/or as a cutter, and in the transition game, he played through contact in that realm, which paid off. Overall, Stevens hit 69.8 percent of his shot attempts in the restricted area as a rookie, per NBA.com’s shooting data, which shouldn’t be glossed over.

But, admittedly, it would help Stevens’ case for being more so regularly in the rotation, of which is a question mark currently, as KJG’s Mack Perry expressed, if he at least knocked in corner three-point looks respectably.

I get that the volume is not expected to be a bunch of threes, and Stevens likely won’t be a crucial scoring presence when he’s in, provided he’s around. Even with that caveat, he only hit 25.0 percent of his corner three attempts, albeit the frequency of those was only 32.0 percent.

I do believe that he could potentially have a higher frequency of those looks relating to his overall three-point attempts, though, and if he can hit 34.0 percent of those, and just look more confident, that’d be notable.

Lastly, and this might be more feasible, I would like to see Stevens help the Cavs a bit more with ball movement.

That’s not something we saw much of in his rotational time last season, at only 1.8 assists per-36 minutes, but if he can show some better feel/vision at least to find some kickouts more, that could aid other guys around him in games.

Granted, I’m not suggesting that I’d look for Stevens to be a key playmaking presence each spurt/stretch he’s in there.

However, I do think with his rim pressure/interior abilities though that he could look for kickouts for others such as Sexton and Garland a bit more in on-ball opportunities when rotators come.