Cavs Player Grades: Dean Wade provides steady play in 2021-22
By Dan Gilinsky
Examining Wade’s 2021-22 offensive play
Wade is not going to be a player that the Cavaliers are going to expect to regularly get 15-plus points, whether that’s in some starts as a fill-in player or as a rotational contributor. That’s not entirely on him, but he’s not regularly going to be a player that’s going to receive a bunch of on-ball opportunities in set offense.
In some mismatch-type situations, or as a counter to hard closeouts, Wade can create for himself, I don’t want to shortchange that, necessarily.
He has shown some capability to generate meaningful drives here and there, and if there’s some 4-on-3 situations after guys are blitzed, Wade can make sound passes to take advantage at times to get others open looks from quick decisions.
All of that being said, Wade’s not really much of an on-ball presence, regularly, and that’s okay, when you factor in his role when he’s in there for stretches.
For starters, in an identical minutes-share as his last season with 19.2, the first he was involved in Cleveland’s rotation a considerable amount, Wade had 5.3 points per game and he shot 35.9 percent from three. He’s not going to be a high-usage guy by any means when he’s in games, for what it’s worth, but while there’s ups and downs with Wade catch-and-shoot-wise, when he’s given his share of looks, he can help Cleveland as an off-ball presence.
Now, I’m not going to put Wade in the Markkanen-esque shooting category; that’s just not the case. However, Wade shot a decent clip from deep overall, more so because of his work as a fill-in starter, and he started in 28 of his 51 appearances this season, for reference.
When he was in for meaningful opportunities, Wade’s cutting, finishing and transition feel were positives to some extent, too, from there.
But, while I don’t discount his movement feel, nor him being a decent ball-mover in his minutes, Wade’s offense is going to have inconsistencies. And we saw that prior to him missing a good chunk of the closing stretch of Cleveland’s season because of a partial meniscus tear, which he’s since fully recovered from and is back to on-court work, fortunately.
In any case, with the limitations as a creator, I have to go with a B- for Wade on offense this season, relative to expectations.