Cleveland Cavaliers forward Dean Wade, who contributed a lot to the team both offensively and defensively last season, even starting several games for the team, has more to prove this season with the addition of a new highly-touted draft pick in big man Evan Mobley and offseason trade acquisition Ricky Rubio. Both these players are in-line to be significant contributors and should help out the club in a variety of ways, thus creating more of a pile of extra players such as Wade who will be pressing to get in those key bench rotations this season.
There has been some recent conversation and reporting from Cavs training camp this preseason about what head coach J.B. Bickerstaff is possibly considering as far as the bench and playing time for each of these guys. Here was on that from Bickerstaff on Wade, via Evan Dammarell of Fear The Sword and the “Locked on Cavs” podcast.
"For us, positions are more who you can defend. ... Dean proved to us as a staff last season he can defend multiple positions."
— Evan Dammarell (@AmNotEvan) October 12, 2021
Bickerstaff goes on to say that Wade showed the ability to defend twos and threes and that he will be deployed as a small forward alongside Markkanen.
So that would suggest Wade will get playing time off the bench. However Bickerstaff also said this in recent media availability, via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
#Cavs J.B. Bickerstaff said today -- because of the versatility of Lauri Markkanen and Evan Mobley, plus the desire to have Ricky Rubio play starter's minutes -- he is weighing the possibility of a nine-man rotation instead of the planned 10.
— Chris Fedor (@ChrisFedor) October 12, 2021
With a nine-man rotation, then where does that put Wade? It seems that Cedi Osman, Dylan Windler, Lamar Stevens and Wade will all be battling it out for one or maybe two rotational positions. I’ve always shared my liking for Wade to be a bigger part of this team and I certainly believe he should be given a regular role off the bench for several reasons. Here are a few of those reasons.
Reason #3: Wade held his own last season
With the injuries to (now former Cav) Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Love a year ago, Wade got an opportunity to play a lot off the bench and even started a number of games throughout the season.
He did well last year and certainly drew the attention of his coaches, teammates and fans. He started 19 games last season. He ended up averaging six points and three-plus rebounds a game, and he had 15 games where he scored in double figures. In the last ten games of the season he scored 12 points or more five times. And he had an earlier stretch of games last March where he scored in double digits eight games out of twelve with the high mark being a 21-point outburst.
He ended up having 15 games where he was on the floor for thirty minutes or more, too. He contributed with his rebounding as well, having 20 games where he had more than five boards.
With the team fighting injuries last season, Wade was on the floor especially the second half of the year. I also loved the fact that when he was playing he was playing fundamental ball and rarely got into foul trouble. In the games he played he only had nine games where he had more than three fouls. We’ll discuss part of this a bit later because it has to do with his impressive defense as the Cavs head coach suggested with his recent comments on Wade.
You never got the impression last season that Wade was over his head in managing what he could. He made good decisions on the floor both offensively and defensively and rarely was the guy on the Cavs turning the ball over or making mistakes. He was even at times tasked to defend the opponents’ best players on the outside as he was stretched to play defense, but never gave up too many easy baskets.