It’s been frustrating that throughout his career so far with the Cleveland Cavaliers, that we haven’t seen Dylan Windler be healthy enough to really establish himself in the rotation for extended stretches. The obvious reason has to be the injuries he’s endured.
Windler missed all of his formal rookie campaign, and was only active in 31 games last season, and at the beginning of this season, he was inactive for a few games because of a hip injury. More recently, Windler was dealing with knee soreness also, and surgery to address tendinopathy concerns in his left knee cut short his last season, for what it’s worth. And like a litony of other Cavs, Windler recently was in COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
Needless to say, it’s been tough for Windler to remain on the floor in his first near-2.5 seasons with Cleveland. But on the plus side, he has shown some good things when in there for rotational stretches defensively, on the glass, and as a cutter.
In the past three games, it’s been nice to see Windler in some stretches on the wing help out the Cavaliers off the bench as well, and with Isaac Okoro sidelined for potentially near two more weeks, that sort of boost can aid Windler’s case. He needs to stay available though, and making the most of his opportunities to be impactful.
Windler needs to be taking advantage of this rotational playing time for the Cavs in upcoming games, and he has helped in some ways.
In these recent games in the last few, Windler has been decent in his play off the bench, as we touched on, and it’s been at least nice to see him pull the trigger off the catch when the opportunities have arisen.
The 25-year-old is never going to have a notable usage in bench minutes, such as with Kevin Love, but it’s good to see him hit some buckets in stretches on the wing, and he hit 2-of-3 from three versus the Memphis Grizzlies in 19 minutes in a close loss.
He played only 10 minutes on Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers in a win, so I’m not reading a ton into it, in fairness. However, he was decisive and I thought should’ve maybe played more, as he knocked in two triples and had two rebounds, an area where he consistently helps the Cavs.
In an uninspiring game for Cleveland offensively and on the defensive glass among their bigs in their 96-82 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Sunday in Klay Thompson’s return, I do credit Windler for his effort on the glass and defensive work, too.
I know, he had three points on 1-of-4 shooting, but he did have five boards and a steal, to go with several deflections in that game, and just did seem more comfortable; his cutting and spatial awareness helped open up some looks for others, from there. He was a bright spot, along with Rajon Rondo, who actually had three big triples to enable the Cavs to crawl back into things after being blitzed 28-14 in the third, along with Lamar Stevens, who had a career-high 17 points.
Just in general with Windler though, while the minutes have been spotty for him this season at 10.7 per game, it’s good for him to be firing away when the chances come, and at least in this time with Okoro out, the Cavaliers need that.
It is a positive sign that considering Windler has been hesitant at times as a shooter in chances last season and at times earlier on this season when he was more involved that he’s looked to have less hesitation of late.
On the season, I’m well aware it’s been on low volume, and he’s had only 2.8 points per outing, but Windler has shown some of his range, and has hit 40.0 percent from three, albeit averaging 1.6 attempts.
We’ll have to see if Windler can keep helping the Cavs in upcoming games; there’s a number of others involved in the rotation looking onward with Stevens and Cedi Osman to some degree, anyhow. The same goes with Rajon Rondo somewhat with Darius Garland as a duo.