With Cavs banged up, Lamar Stevens should receive PT for this reason

The Cleveland Cavaliers are dealing with key perimeter injuries at the moment, as Darius Garland (lower back soreness/bone bruise in back), Caris LeVert (foot sprain) and Rajon Rondo (big toe sprain) are sidelined. Despite a valiant comeback effort against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night, the Cavaliers have lost two of their first three games coming out of the All-Star break.

Garland has missed Cleveland’s first three games of post-All-Star break play, and his back soreness has been a lingering issue that he and the team will have to manage from here, and LeVert has missed these first three games since the break also. He could be back sometime this week, or seemingly early next week. In Rondo’s case, he could return by next weekend it appears; his injury reportedly occurred during Cleveland’s loss at the Detroit Pistons on Thursday.

With Cleveland dealing with backcourt injuries to those aforementioned contributors, they signed journeyman Tim Frazier to a 10-day contract last week for insurance, but it’s tough to say if we’ll see him in there. The same goes for a possible second 10-day contract for him when this one concludes.

Two-way contributor Brandon Goodwin has done a respectable job in his meaningful minutes a number of times for Cleveland over roughly the past two months, and when Garland is back, he could still receive some minutes. When Rondo returns, based on how things were trending pre-Rondo injury, it’s somewhat uncertain if Goodwin getting consistent play from there, though, and/or during hopefully a postseason run.

In regards to other perimeter contributors at the moment with the team banged up, Isaac Okoro, Lauri Markkanen, Cedi Osman and Dean Wade are regularly getting action, but to me, it has been frustrating that Lamar Stevens has fallen out of the rotation of late.

Now, before LeVert suffered his foot injury, that played into it, with Osman/Wade involved with that. Still, with what Stevens has shown pretty regularly this season, when the opportunities have presented themselves, he’s a viable contributor for rotational stretches that are versatile defensively, and on offense, he has shown tangible growth.

With that in mind, with the Cavs’ injuries issues right now, I personally believe Stevens should receive some playing time in upcoming games, for this reason.

Stevens has shown he can help the Cavs offense from an on-ball scoring standpoint, so he should be in there for stretches in upcoming games. Coupled with that, his off-ball growth has been on display, too.

I get it; Stevens is not what hardcore fans or casuals consider a crucial offensive focal point in his minutes. The overall counting stats just don’t paint the whole picture.