Best undrafted Cavs player No. 6: Lamar Stevens
The current Cleveland Cavaliers team has a lot of draft pedigree. Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, Evan Mobley and Ricky Rubio were all top-5 picks, and players like Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert all went in the first round. Yet one key player, in some ways the heart and soul of their defensive intensity, was undrafted when he came out of school.
Lamar Stevens went undrafted in 2020 after his final season at Penn State, where he was First-team All-Big Ten his final two seasons. He signed a two-way deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers and never left, earning a full contract by the end of the season.
Stevens isn’t a premier scoring threat, and his 3-point shot is very shaky (28.3 percent for his career) but he just finds a way to make positive plays happen when he is on the court. He is strong and relentless on defense, able to body up with larger players, and he attacks the offensive glass with vigor.
When Stevens started barking to indicate a great defensive play by himself or his teammates, the practice caught on and became the team’s “Junkyard Dog” chain, an award given to the player each game who best embodies the mentality of fighting hard on every possession. Stevens doesn’t have a large role and doesn’t take a lot of shots, but his spirit is integral to this current iteration of the Cavaliers.