This offseason, it’s imperative that the Cleveland Cavaliers find ways to further complement the young core for the team.
Cleveland has to strengthen their wing outlook, and ideally, the Cavaliers have to find their answer at the starting 3 spot, and adding a stretch big/forward wouldn’t hurt.
Rumored wing targets for the Cavaliers have seemed to be the likes of Dorian Finney-Smith, Royce O’Neale, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Bojan Bogdanovic, among others, on the possible trade front. Some free agent wings/forwards that have been linked to Cleveland have been Jalen McDaniels, Joe Ingles, Terrence Ross and Grant Williams, for instance.
It’s evident the Wine and Gold have to bring in more shooting, probably more than anything this offseason, whether it’s via trade and/or free agency. As for other needs, addressing the backup 5 position and possibly bringing in another reserve lead guard could be sensible, too, but an energy wing to help Cleveland’s defense could be a feasible add as well.
Along those lines, a player that’s unheralded and could stil be a nice, low-risk signing could be Hamidou Diallo, who displayed growth in recent seasons with the Detroit Pistons. Diallo, who will turn 25 in late July, is set to be an unrestricted free agent that could seemingly give this Cavaliers club a jolt.
Diallo could give the Cavaliers bench real juice and is still a young player.
Diallo is not a player who’s seemingly been generating a ton of conversation as we near free agency, but he has emerged in the past couple of seasons with the Pistons. As a bench energy contributor for the most part for Detroit, he’s had his share of promising performances.
He had 9.3 points and 3.5 rebounds in 17.8 minutes per outing in 2022-23, and 11.0 points and 4.8 rebounds in 21.9 minutes per contest in 2021-22. He started in 21 contests for Detroit in the 2021-22 campaign, although since being acquired in the 2020-21 season via trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder, he’s mostly been a bench guy for the Pistons, and was exclusively in this now-past season.
His defense is what we’ll touch on first, to begin, however.