Lamar Stevens has ultimate buy-in with Cavs, is making impact

Throughout this season, it’s been entertaining to see Lamar Stevens make his imprint on games for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Stevens is not going to be a player that generally garners much notoriety, such as Darius Garland or Evan Mobley, but Stevens has shown improvement this season after a rookie campaign that was also pretty encouraging, given he was originally a two-way player.

Now, again, Stevens is not a guy that’s going to be the most significant player, at least on the offensive end, game to game for Cleveland. On the season, he’s averaged 5.2 points and 2.3 rebounds in 14.4 minutes per outing in 52 appearances.

That said, Stevens has played at multiple positions this season, and while he’s primarily played at the 3, he’s filled in some at the 4, and earlier in the year, he filled in at the 2 when Isaac Okoro was sidelined.

Plus, on the defensive end of the floor, Stevens’ versatility, strength and feel as a rotator has helped the Cavaliers on plenty of occasions this year, which shouldn’t be discounted. That’s whether it’s been in rotational minutes or at times as a spot starter.

With Stevens, though, it’s also apparent that he’s truly one of the vocal leaders within the Cavaliers’ team, just based on his body language on the sideline, with the energy he provides when in, and with how guys feed off what he brings more often than not.

And recently, it was cool to see that Stevens is always going to be 100 percent bought-in with the Cavs, no matter what his role is night to night for head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company. These comments hit on that in Stevens’ media availability on Monday, via Evan Dammarell of Fear The Sword and Right Down Euclid.

Stevens has the ultimate buy-in with the Cavs, and he’s often made his presence felt.

There’s going to be some inconsistencies with Stevens, but that’s understandable, honestly.

He was previously an undrafted two-way signing before last season, and admittedly, he’s not a player that’s going to have three-point looks go down regularly. He’s shown signs off the catch this season, but is 15-of-50 from three on the year, a 30.0 percent clip.

And on the defensive end, there still are going to be some growing pains. Stevens at times has been prone to having shooting fouls on closeouts, and that’s an area he has to clean up, to some extent at least.

On the offensive end, sometimes he can overextend a bit, too, a la Cedi Osman. That’s partially played into Stevens having a turnover rate of 11.7 percent, which has placed in the 32nd percentile among wings this season, per Cleaning The Glass. His assist-to-usage ratio of 0.42 has placed in only the 12th percentile, also, per Cleaning The Glass.

However, when it comes to Stevens, he has shown some promising signs offensively in his minutes this year, regarding his cutting development/off-ball growth, and he has proven to be a viable driver and finisher.

Plus, he has demonstrated that he’s capable of creating on his own in the mid-range area at times, just as he did a bunch in his four-year collegiate career at Penn State. It was funny that Stevens pointed out how he jokingly points out to Bickerstaff how he’s second all-time in Penn State history in scoring, too, via Dammarell.

Anyway, with Stevens, when he’s had regular opportunities for stretches of games, he’s looked more comfortable as the season has progressed, and with Cavs forward Dean Wade reportedly partially tearing his meniscus, we should continue to see Stevens regularly involved. I’d imagine that’s as a starter too, albeit not with starter’s minutes.

He had 15 points in 16 minutes in Cleveland’s win on Saturday night versus the Detroit Pistons, and did help in a win over the Denver Nuggets on Friday night, when he had eight points, three assists and two steals in 21 minutes.

But generally, it’s been encouraging to see how the 24-year-old Stevens has come along this year, and it’s refreshing that no matter what his role outlook is week-to-week, he has the ultimate buy-in with the Cavaliers and is a big fan of Bickerstaff. Stevens and the Cavaliers’ group having the Junkyard Dog Chain as a motivator adds into that, too, and he expressed his and the teams’ affinity for that as well, via Dammarell.

Hopefully Lamar keeps making an impact in games to come here for the Wine and Gold, who have the Los Angeles Lakers next up on Monday night. The Cavaliers are looking to secure a postseason berth with 11 games left to play, and they are currently sixth in the Eastern Conference and one game ahead of the Toronto Raptors for a non-play-in seed. With a win on Monday and a Washington Wizards loss to the Houston Rockets, Cleveland would at least clinch a play-in spot.