The off-season in the NBA officially started with the draft on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The Cleveland Cavaliers did not have a pick in the first round but had two in the second round.
They used their first pick on guard Tyrese Proctor from Duke. The scouting report on Proctor is that he has a high basketball IQ and the good shooting touch, thriving in a half court setting. The rap on him is although he played both guard spots in college, his ball handling needs to get better.
Our first thought is everyone has a type, and Koby Altman’s is 6’5″ players. He collects them like some people collect trading cards. He can’t get enough of them.
However, the Cavs won 64 games last season and are projected to be in the mix for the best record in the conference again this year. That means it is doubtful that Proctor sees much court time, if any, with the Cavaliers this season. He will likely get mostly G League minutes to see how he performs.
Cleveland had the penultimate pick in the draft and used it on Saliou Niang, a 6’8″ forward from Italy. He will play this season there.
The report on him is he is very raw, but has quick feet and good lateral mobility, which means he should be a factor on the defensive end of the floor. He also has a high free throw rate, which means he is aggressive on the offensive end.
The bigger news was a trade over the weekend, a rare one for one player deal. The Cavs shipped Isaac Okoro to Chicago for the injury plagued Lonzo Ball.
When healthy, Ball is a very good ball handler with size at 6’6″, a perfect pairing for the Cavs’ small backcourt combination of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland. In his career spanning 287 games, he’s averaged 11.4 points, 5.8 assists, and 5.5 rebounds per contest. His shooting percentage from three is 36.2%, much improved from his first two years of 30.5% and 32.9%
The key phrase in that paragraph though is “when healthy”. Ball has never played more than 63 games in any season, and that’s the only season he appeared in that many. And since 2021-22, he missed the entire next two seasons and played in 35 games last year.
The Bulls used him just 22 minutes per contest and maybe reduced time will keep him in the lineup more. But he’s far from a “for sure” in the Cavs’ rotation.
Besides, the cost for Ball wasn’t much. Okoro simply never developed enough of a reliable offensive game to be on the court in the playoffs. Perhaps he was miscast as a “three and D” wing, because it seems like all the Cavs did for him offensively was put him in the corner for the three.
We wondered why the front office extended him last off-season, and now that has been rectified.
The one surprise, at least to us, was signing Sam Merrill to a four-year deal, pretty much closing the door on Ty Jerome’s tenure in wine and gold. The latter averaged 12.5 points per game a year ago and was up for sixth man of the year honors.
Merrill is more of a one-dimensional player, but that dimension is shooting and guys who can shoot get paid in today’s NBA.
It’s a good start to the off-season for Altman, GM Mike Gansey, and the Cavs, but they still haven’t addresses length on the wing and another solid power forward/center.
Hopefully, we will hear on those spots soon.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 