3 key Cleveland Cavaliers players to watch post-All-Star break

3 Cavs players to watch post-All-Star – #1: Caris LeVert

It’s debatable, but the first Cavs player, for me, to keep a close eye on post-All-Star break is LeVert.

It’s again, going to take time for him to get comfortable with Cleveland following him being dealt to them by the Indiana Pacers the weekend before last.

The Cavaliers and head coach J.B. Bickerstaff will seemingly need some more games to gauge whether LeVert should regularly start or come in as a supersub-type contributor, too. The results for LeVert with the Pacers were mixed overall in his season-plus or so with them, when you weigh in that his splits were maybe a bit inflated with Indiana’s injuries this season.

LeVert himself has had his share of injury woes throughout his career as well, in fairness, dating back to his time with the Brooklyn Nets, where he spent most of his career thus far.

Anyway, with the Cavs so far, the results have been mixed for him with 13.0 points and 3.8 assists in 31.0 minutes per outing in four games; he’s only had an effective field goal shooting clip of 43.1 percent and has hit just 28.6 percent from three, and triples aren’t necessarily a crucial aspect of his game. But we’ve seen the shot creation on display, particularly with pull-ups/floater looks, and he can get to the basket coupled with that, a la Sexton.

Secondary playmaking and in spurts, primary playmaking from LeVert can help ease the workload for Garland, also, with I’d think Rajon Rondo and/or two-way Brandon Goodwin mixed in. We’ll have to see if Goodwin is eventually converted to a standard deal for the postseason with a corresponding roster move, as an aside.

Circling back to LeVert’s outlook, though, how the Cavaliers involve him the rest of the regular season and hopefully getting him in-rhythm for the postseason, provided they can solidify themselves to get there, is maybe the biggest storyline to watch for the team post-All-Star.

I do believe with his versatile game, the Cavs should be able to figure things out with the Michigan product, who is ironically, a Columbus native. If that plays out, he could seemingly be extended in the upcoming offseason and stick around long-term.

The team does still want to keep Sexton around, too, and a couple of recent reports make me optimistic they can do so. We’ll have to see down the road, with Sexton set to be a restricted free agent currently.