King James Gospel
Fansided

Position Battles: Dean Wade vs Lamar Stevens for Cavs’ backup wing

By Quinn Minnich

Dean Wade, Cleveland Cavaliers. (Photo by David Richard-USA TODAY Sports)
Dean Wade, Cleveland Cavaliers. (Photo by David Richard-USA TODAY Sports) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 4
Next
Cavs
Tobias Harris, Philadelphia 76ers and Lamar Stevens, Cleveland Cavaliers. Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images /

Pros of playing Lamar Stevens

Lamar Stevens played in 63 games this season, most of those absences due to being outside the rotation rather than due to injury. As I previously mentioned, Stevens is a scrappy defender who does all of the things coaches love. Stevens hustles on the defensive end, dives for loose balls and is a tremendous finisher around the rim. The box score may not show it, but his impact on the game is valuable to the Cavs’ roster.

According to The Rookie Wire, Stevens had a max vertical of 41 inches, one of the best in the league. To put it in perspective, LeBron James had his highest vertical jump at 44 inches, so Stevens is one of the highest flyers in the league.

According to nba.com, Stevens ranks in the 61.3 percentile when it comes to fast-break opportunities, and shoots 66.2% on these attempts. He also scores 1.18 points per possession and shoots free throws on 19.5% of these attempts. Furthermore, he ranks in the 93.8th percentile when it comes to hand-off plays, scoring 1.24 points per possession, and shooting 69.2% on these attempts. However, he only took 0.3 attempts of these per game, and should probably take more of these, considering he did so well on these plays.