3 summer free agents for Cavs to watch down the stretch

3 summer free agents for Cavs to watch: Malik Monk

Malik Monk was an incredibly fun college basketball player at the University of Kentucky, raining down fireballs from all over the court. Some draft analysts, including the humble author of this article, ranked him as a top-5 player in the 2017 NBA Draft on account of his ball-handling and shooting ability.

Unfortunately, injuries and cold shooting led to a truly abysmal start to his career. Outside of the occasional big game, Monk was anonymous as a bench guard for the Charlotte Hornets, shooting 34, 33 and 28 percent from deep respectively each of his first three seasons in the league. Something changed last season, when he hit 40.1 percent from deep, enough for the Los Angeles Lakers to come calling last offseason.

In the midst of a bad Lakers season, Monk has been one of the bright spots. He is averaging a career-best 13.2 points per game on a solid 57.4 percent effective field goal percentage, also by far a career-best. He is averaging more rebounds, assists, steals and blocks than ever before. He is nothing of a stopper at the point of attack, but he is engaged and working hard on that end, and especially given the poor defenders around him is holding his own.

He is a free agent this summer and the Lakers will only have non-Bird rights on him, which should make him a prime candidate to move teams. While few will likely trust him as a starter, he could look for a two-year deal to play for an actual contender (had to) and still hit the free agent market again in his prime with a longer track record of playing well, and the stink of this Lakers’ season long gone.

The Cavs could install him as a backup combo guard, an offensive spark plug off the bench who can play alongside Caris LeVert for a bench guard pairing. He’s essentially a similar, yet less expensive version of Collin Sexton; not to say he is as good of a scorer (and no one is as fierce of a competitor) as Sexton, but just that if Sexton walks or is traded he could be a replacement for some of that role. In the process, perhaps he redeems my faith in him at the time of the draft.