Denzel Valentine might have saved his roster spot with the Cavs

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been one of many teams dealing with with an outbreak of COVID-19 in their organization, losing half of their roster across the back half of December. With prominent players missing time, the Cavs have had to reach deep into their roster and sign players out of the G League just to field a full team.

The Cavs are weathering the storm, with a blowout win over the Toronto Raptors in between a pair of tough losses to the Boston Celtics and New Orleans Pelicans. Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has kept the rotation as tight as possible, but even so there have been opportunities for players outside the rotation to make an impact.

Amidst the chaos of a virus surge, Denzel Valentine returned to the court with a big performance and saved his roster spot with the Cavs

Denzel Valentine has been one of those players. After clearing health and safety protocols himself, Bickerstaff made him one of the first players off the bench against an embarrassingly shorthanded Toronto Raptors team. All caveats about the opponent aside, Valentine absolutely made the most of his opportunity.

In 26 minutes Valentine was 6-for-11 from the field, including a sizzling 5-for-9 from deep. Although just 6’4″ tall, Valentine is strong and plays bigger than he is, something Bickerstaff has leaned into, even playing him minutes at power forward. Against the Raptors he ripped down nine boards to go with a pair of assists and a pair of steals. One of those steals was a pick-6 dunk to close the first half that took the roof off of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse:

Valentine followed up that performance with a more mild appearance against the New Orleans Pelicans, scoring just six points with three rebounds and three assists in 24 minutes against the New Orleans Pelicans. This was more indicative of his impact whenever he received minutes this season: solid but unspectacular, not the reason the Cavs won but not the reason they lost.

For the season Valentine is averaging just 2.9 points per game in 22 appearances. He has received double-digit minutes just seven times; three times during the Cavs’ first bout of unavailable players in mid November, and the last four games with multiple players out due to health and safety protocols. Otherwise he has been a rotational afterthought, well behind reserve wings such as Lamar Stevens, Cedi Osman and Dean Wade.

Being a rotational afterthought with little developmental upside makes your roster spot a tenuous one, especially with so many players not on rosters getting tryouts across the league. In multiple places teams have cut veteran end-of-rotation players to sign new players who balled out on hardship contracts. Alize Johnson in Chicago and Brad Wanamaker in Indiana are two such examples.

A Valentine who didn’t explode against the Raptors, who didn’t shoot 11-for-21 (52.4 percent) from deep the last two weeks, that player is vulnerable to getting his spot stolen. Justin Anderson, for example, clearly has fans in the organization and has shot well since being called into action the past three games. A shaky Valentine performance could have led the front office to question whether Anderson would be a better fit.

By proving himself Valentine may have saved his roster spot, which will put him in position to receive more minutes given the current roster difficulties. Collin Sexton is already out for the season, and at the time of writing the team doesn’t know how long Ricky Rubio will be out with a knee injury sustained Tuesday night in New Orleans. Darius Garland is currently out in health and safety protocols.

Valentine is a decent ball-handler and can serve as something of a big point guard in bench lineups. Pairing him with Kevin Love and Evan Mobley would give the team three decent passers to cobble together playmaking duties with bench units.

Once everyone has cleared health and safety protocols, it’s likely Valentine goes back to riding the pine. He was a longshot to have more of a role than that, especially given Bickerstaff’s inclinations towards tighter rotations.

Yet by proving himself against Toronto he may have secured his roster spot, in turn putting him in position to earn more minutes over the coming couple of weeks. That might not lead to a spot with the Cavs, but it could extend his career moving forward. One game may have made all the difference for Denzel Valentine.