3 reasons Dean Wade needs to be a Cavs’ rotational regular in 2023-24

Reason No. 2: He rarely makes mistakes, and has a high basketball IQ

Wade doesn’t make many mistakes when he’s out on the court. He has a high basketball IQ and that helps make the rest of the players around him look even better when they are playing together.

Wade doesn’t seek a lot of attention when he’s out on the court. He prefers to play a fundamentally sound game and that seems to pay off more than not.

He usually makes the right pass or sets the right screen. He’ll often times help set up the stars of the team. He wants his team to win the game and he shows that by hustling after loose balls or giving that extra effort on defense.

Back in the 2020-21 season Wade played in 63 games with 19 starts and only turned the ball over 30 times. The following season he played in 51 games with 28 starts and only turned the ball over 16 times. And last season he only recorded 17 turnovers in 44 games.

For comparison’s sake, former Cavs forward Cedi Osman, who came off the bench and started some games, like Wade, was much more of a turnover machine. In the last three seasons, Wade played 3,083 total minutes while Osman played in 4,520 minutes. In those stretches, Wade only turned the ball over 63 times. Osman, on the other hand, turned the ball over 199 times.

Even factoring in the extra minutes of Osman, and Osman being more of an on-ball presence, if Wade had had the same minutes, he wouldn’t have come close to that high mark of Osman.