NBA teams are driven by stars, and stars are usually drafted near the top of the first round. The Cleveland Cavaliers know that better than anyone, winning the only title in franchise history on the play of two No. 1 overall picks, LeBron James and Kyrie Irving.
Not every player goes in the lottery, nor are they all drafted in any round. Some players go undrafted upon entering the league and face the uphill battle of finding a roster spot over players who were valued enough to be drafted. Yet often those players have the determination to not just survive but thrive. Here are seven undrafted players who made an impact in Cleveland.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 7: Alonzo Gee
Alonzo Gee entered the league in the 2009 NBA Draft out of Alabama, but the 6’6″ swingman went undrafted. He caught on with the Minnesota Timberwolves but didn’t appear in a game, then signed a pair of two-way contracts with the Washington Wizards and appeared in 11 games. In his second season, he appeared with the San Antonio Spurs, the Wizards again, and finally finished out the year with the Cavaliers.
Gee carved out a home for himself in Cleveland, appearing in 250 games over four seasons. He became a full-time starter, a reliable option on the wing for a Cavs team without veteran talent after the departure of LeBron James (the first time). He played in and started in all 82 games in 2012-13, and in total started 166 of the 250 games he played in for Cleveland.
There was never a hidden star waiting to break out, but Gee played hard and was a decent finisher. He deserved to be drafted, and he found a place on the Cavs for a few seasons in the middle of his career.
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.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 5: Dean Wade
One year before adding Lamar Stevens on a two-way contract, they picked up another undrafted forward who has stuck with the team ever since. Dean Wade entered the 2019 NBA Draft after starring at Kansas State, and after going undrafted signed a two-way contract with the Cavaliers.
Wade played just 12 games as a rookie, not doing anything remarkable, but his work ethic and versatility earned him a full contract the following summer. From there, he began to demonstrate that his 3-and-D ability fit into any lineup and earned a more regular spot in the rotation.
The changing needs of the roster have not resulted in a consistent starting spot with the Cavaliers, nor does he always have a guaranteed spot in J.B. Bickerstaff’s rotation, who plays the “hot hand” approach with his bench players. What is consistent is that when Dean Wade is on the court, the Cavs tend to win his minutes.
Four seasons into his career, Wade is a 36.1 percent 3-point shooter and an excellent defender. He has enough lateral agility to stick with faster wings, but he is also great at scaling down to battle with bigs. He signed a new extension with the Cavs before his fourth season and should be around for a long time.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 4: Damon Jones
Damon Jones is unique on this list for his boomerang nature; he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers during his first career, and then was a part of the coaching staff in Cleveland in his second. That latter reality speaks to how his time in Cleveland wasn’t as frustrating as many fans likely remember.
To go back to the beginning, Damon Jones played college basketball at the University of Houston. He entered the NBA Draft in 1997 and was not selected, and ended up playing for a number of non-NBA basketball leagues, including the Idaho Stampede of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA). He finally caught on in the NBA in 1999 with the New Jersey Nets.
Jones was a true journeyman, playing for nine teams in his first seven seasons in the league. That seventh season was spent in Miami and was the best of his career, with Jones hitting 43.2 percent of his 3-pointers and holding down a starting spot for most of the season. That earned him a hefty contract in free agency from the Cavaliers, which we recently ranked as one of the 15 worst free agent contracts in franchise history.
Jones was overpaid, sure, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a good player for the Cavs. He shot well as a shooting specialist off the bench in a very small offensive role. He went to the NBA Finals alongside LeBron James in 2007, and in a career where he never spent more than one season with a team he played three in Cleveland. Then he returned years later as a coach on Ty Lue’s coaching staff and won a title with Cleveland in 2016.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 3: Matthew Dellavedova
If we wanted to highlight specifically those undrafted players who got their start with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Matthew Dellavedova would be the prime example. The Australian guard played college basketball at Saint Mary’s, winning WCC Player of the Year in 2012 and being named First-team All-WCC three different times.
Then he entered the NBA Draft in 2013 and went undrafted, joining the Cleveland Cavaliers in Summer League. He impressed them enough with his play to sign a two-year contract before the start of the season, and from there a fan favorite was born.
“Delly” as he was affectionately known by Cleveland fans wasn’t a high-octane scorer, but he could do two things very well. First, he could get the offense into its sets, and often brought the ball up to give LeBron James a breather. Secondly, he put it all on the line defensively, hounding opposing ball handlers and throwing himself into the middle of every loose ball scrum.
Dellavedova had a number of key moments with the team, including big performances in the playoffs, and he was a part of the title-winning team in 2016. His play in Cleveland earned him a big contract with the Milwaukee Bucks, where he played for 2.5 seasons before returning to the Cavaliers. At the time of writing he plays for the Sacramento Kings as a mentor and occasional third point guard, extending a career that began without a draft selection.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 2: Timofey Mozgov
Back in 2008 the NBA Draft took place, and a random name was never called: Timofey Mozgov, a center from Russia. He wasn’t expected to be drafted and was not well known even by most scouts and front offices, so that was no big surprise. He would continue to play basketball in Russia, not known for being one of the premier international leagues.
Over the next two years, however, he began to dominate the Russian league, and he began to catch the eye of teams in the NBA. The New York Knicks were the first to act, signing him to a three-year contract in 2010. He joined the team for a few months before he was traded to the Denver as part of the Carmelo Anthony deal.
He played four years with the Nuggets until the 2015 Trade Deadline when the Cavaliers traded for him to man the middle for the second act of the LeBron James Cavs. He started immediately and was a major part of that team coalescing and making a run to the NBA Finals, where he dominated the Warriors until they downshifted into small-ball lineups.
The Cavs shifted to a more open offensive style the next season, and Mozgov played a smaller role, but his per-minute impact and size were such that he earned a highly lucrative contract from the Los Angeles Lakers in the summer of 2016. Mozgov played just two seasons for the Cavs but he made a large impact when he did.
Best undrafted Cavs player No. 1: Ben Wallace
To this point, none of the players on this list have been stars. While there are a few notable players in NBA history who went from undrafted status to stardom, the list isn’t long, and most of them never played for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The exception is Ben Wallace, right at the top of the list for the best players in NBA history to go undrafted.
The 6’9″ big man played college basketball well out of the spotlight, finishing his college career at Virginia Union before going undrafted in 1996. He caught on with the Washington Bullets and averaged just 5.8 minutes per game, but slowly started to build his career from there. By his second year he was getting spot starts, and by his fourth season he started 81 games for the Orlando Magic.
The following season was when his career truly took off. He was traded in the offseason to the Detroit Pistons as part of the Grant Hill deal, and he would become the league’s best defensive player over the next seven years. He was a four-time All-Star, a six-time All-Defense winner, and won four Defensive Player of the Year awards. He was a dominant interior presence on a Detroit Pistons team that contended for a title for years, winning one in 2004.
Wallace made his way to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008, and played a season-and-a-half. He had very little to offer on offense but continued to be a defensive stalwart. His athleticism began to wane and the Cavs moved on in 2009, when he returned to Detroit to finish out his career.
Players like Wallace and Mozgov had relatively short stints in Cleveland, while players like Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens are building their careers entirely with the Cavs thus far. All of these plays overcame the odds and proved NBA front offices wrong by building careers after going undrafted.