3 Cavs that have to step up with Dean Wade sidelined

One of the better role players for the Cleveland Cavaliers this season has been Dean Wade, who has been a developmental success for the Wine and Gold.

Wade’s not going to be a player that is going to be one of the stars, if you will, for the Cavaliers game-to-game, such as the likes of Darius Garland or Donovan Mitchell. Having said that, Wade’s defensive prowess has made a difference for Cleveland this year when he’s been in there for stretches of contests, and his catch-and-shoot play has popped thus far in this being his fourth season.

On the year, Wade has had 6.4 points and 4.1 rebounds in 24.1 minutes per outing, in what’s amounted to 17 appearances. He’s connected on 41.1 percent of his three-point attempts, too, on what’s been 3.3 per game.

Wade is a player that’s consistently been in the right spots on both ends of the floor, whether he’s been playing for stretches at the 3 or 4, and with how he can mesh with a variety of teammates, it’s aided Cleveland’s flow on offense. With his feel on offense and defense, multi-positional abilities and transition skill set, Wade has been able to regularly impact games.

Unfortunately, though, after he missed six games because of knee soreness up until a few games ago, Wade suffered a shoulder injury after only 10 minutes of his own gametime in Cleveland’s win over the Orlando Magic on Friday.

Wade had reportedly been dealing with shoulder pain for ‘quite some time,”’ per J.B. Bickerstaff and on Sunday, the Cavs announced that Wade is expected to be out for three-to-four weeks with an AC joint sprain in his left shoulder, formally. That was via Spencer Davies of BasketballNews.com.

With Wade sidelined, a couple of Cavs players, to me, could be more relied upon more, for different reasons.

We’ll touch on three of those Cavs players that’ll need to step up more sans Wade here.

The first is the likes of Lamar Stevens.