Who will lead the Cavs in bench scoring in 2022-23?
By Dan Gilinsky
I’d go with Love here first
At first glance, I’d probably lean Love here. In his shift to a bench supersub role last season, he flourished, and how the Cavaliers managed his minutes/workload paid dividends in preserving him and giving the team a great lift.
On the season, Love had 13.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per contest, in what was 22.5 minutes per game of work on average. Most notably, he connected on a robust 39.2 percent of his three-point attempts, of which were 6.4 per contest in his minutes.
For his impact for a Cavs team that had a resurgent 2021-22 campaign and nearly made the postseason, Love actually finished second in voting for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year Award. It was a bounce-back year for him, which was awesome to see, and this upcoming season, it’s clear to me that the Cavaliers should have their blueprint for how to best utilize him as a go-to-type bench shooter.
I personally think that Love should be in great spots to mesh well with Mitchell, again off Garland, and for stretches, his chemistry with Mobley should be much better this coming season.
So, for now, I’d probably lean Love, regarding the question we mentioned on the previous slide.
LeVert, if he’s more so a bench contributor this coming season, is another guy in the running in that realm, one would assume. We’ll examine his outlook, among a couple of others, next up.