Cavs Player Grades: Lamar Stevens has a promising Year 2
By Dan Gilinsky
Stevens’ defensive play this season
Coming into the season, I was hopeful that, even with plenty of others involved, Stevens would receive situational defensive minutes.
Injuries did admittedly play some into it, but he eventually became a regular throughout the season for his ability to defend multiple positions.
Stevens often did a more than respectable job in his defense of opposing wings, and at his size at 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, did admirably against bigger wings and forwards a fair amount in his minutes. That gave the likes of Lauri Markkanen, and at times, Isaac Okoro a breather for stretches.
Stevens at times can be a bit overaggressive with his contests, more so when trying to get through off-ball screens, and that’s an area that needs to be cleaned up for him.
Although in his role as mostly a rotational contributor, Stevens’ physicality, toughness, and feel as a rotator often gave Cleveland energy this season. He did have 3.8 fouls per-36 minutes again in Year 2, but that wasn’t the end of the world, given how he gave them typically quality defensive wing minutes.
I don’t personally read a ton into his defensive rating being 0.8 higher than Cleveland’s overall defensive rating, especially given what he was tasked with doing in his defensive minutes.
Stevens defensively again proved to be one of the Cavs’ most versatile players in his second season, and his rotational feel improved, leading to some timely blocks and deflections, which helped generate runouts.
There’s plenty to build on from him in that regard, but the fouls on shooters at times, and sometimes him maybe overextending a bit are areas to work on.