3 intriguing candidates to fill Cavs’ 15th roster spot
Candidates for Cavs’ 15th roster spot: Ignas Brazdeikis
The Cleveland Cavaliers suffered through the John Beilein coaching era just a few years ago, and while he is long gone from the NBA one of his last college players is not. Ignas “Iggy” Brazdeikis has hung around the NBA for the past few years after going 47th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft.
As a freshman with the Wolverines in 2018-19 he was something of a stretch big, averaging 14.8 points per game and hitting 39.2 percent of his 3-pointers. That didn’t translate smoothly to the NBA, as he has hit just 31.5 percent of his shot from deep. Brazdeikis sticking around the league is dependent on finding his shot.
He played well for Lithuania in EuroBasket last month, averaging 10.7 points in 22.4 minutes per game and hitting 36 percent of his outside shots. There is enough potential pop there for a team to give him another shot, and the Cavs are a great option. He can help replace some of what Lauri Markkanen brought last season, and if it doesn’t work out they can cut him and move on. Given that no NBA team has even brought him in for training camp, he may leave the Lithuanian Basketball League (not a high-octane European league by any means) for a partially-guaranteed chance to prove himself in the NBA.
Next. 3 Cavs players who won’t be on the team by next season. dark
None of these players are going to have much of an impact on the Cavs’ chances of making noise in the playoffs, nor are they likely to become core pieces of what the team is building moving forward. Yet even small-minute depth pieces can sometimes be needed, and the Cavs should set themselves up for success even on the margins.