De’Andre Hunter started on a regular basis during his first five seasons in the league with the Hawks. In 64 combined games with Atlanta and the Cavaliers last season, he started just nine games in 64 games.
Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor (subscription required) argues that Cleveland should keep Hunter in a reserve role. He notes that with Ty Jerome signing with Memphis, the Cavaliers need another high-scoring sixth man and points to Hunter as the most logical candidate — he averaged 17 points in 27.2 minutes per game last season.
Hunter may be more talented than Max Strus, the other candidate to start at small forward, but Hunter is not the best stylistic fit with the starting five, Fedor opines. The Cavs beat writer also points out that Hunter has shown he’s comfortable coming off the bench, as he receives more freedom and has an expanded offensive role.
Here’s more from the Central Division:
- In his second season as the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, Trajan Langdon has continued to make personnel decisions with the desire to keep his options open for future moves, Pistons.com’s Keith Langlois writes. Langdon added Duncan Robinson and Caris LeVert to fortify his bench without sacrificing future flexibility and it’s likely that he’ll only reach rookie scale extensions agreements with Jaden Ivey and Jalen Duren before the October deadline if the contract numbers match their on-court contributions.
- By all accounts, Matas Buzelis wants to be a special player and is doing what is necessary to reach that status, according to Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. With contract issues surrounding Coby White and Josh Giddey, the second-year Bulls forward has become the most important player on the roster. After averaging 22.5 points and 5.0 rebounds in two Summer League contests, Buzelis has been busy in the weight room and on the court, looking to expand his game.
- Former Magic guard Cole Anthony spoke about his excitement to join the Bucks. Get the details here.
I can’t wait to see Buzelis continue to improve, I think he has the chance to be an all star caliber player
All I keep hearing is that he wants to be Great…and he’s working hard to accomplish that goal…if he just keeps his head down and plows forward with his talent and mindset he has a very good chance to be great…
I for one are rooting for him…how can’t u.
he has that same dog in his eye that young Jimmy Butler had the same potential to improve
I’m still very curious what the ‘contract uncertainty surrounding Coby White’ means. Do they think he’s not going to re-sign?
He likely won’t sign an extension due to the 140% limit, so he’ll reach unrestricted free agency. Even if the Bulls are confident about their chances to re-sign him at that point, there are no guarantees when every other team has a shot at him (see Myles Turner and the Pacers).
Bulls blew their opportunity to trade White at the draft. He’s only making around 15 million this year which would have made a trade easier. What are the buffoons going to do, Give him an extension and THEN try to trade him. That isn’t even legal because he’d have to stay until like Jan. This team is so mis- managed it’s almost funny if it wasn’t so sad.
you are totally right here people wanted to give AK credit for getting players like white on a bargain deal but the bargain deal is only good if you trade it away because later you have to pay more money and the problem with trading him when he’s gonna lower money is you’re gonna get an inferior caliber player who makes that lower amount of money so paying guys what they’re worth is the best policy
Does that limit apply if he were traded?
I had always thought that a player’s team could offer a FA more than any other team under this cba, so this is a bit of a surprise. But the nba’s whole economic structure is a crazy rube goldberg contraption.
The Bulls would have the ability to make the biggest offer in free agency, but that basically means an extra year (5 years instead of 4) and slightly bigger raises (8% instead of 5%) — unclear if that would make a difference in White’s case, since he’s not likely to get the max.
Prior to free agency, a player can only extend for up to 140% of his previous salary or 140% of the estimated average salary, whichever is higher. That wouldn’t change if White were traded (in fact, he’d be limited to 120% for six months after the trade). It’s the downside of signing a guy to a contract that turns out to be very team-friendly.
Not following… so when White reaches free agency after next szn, the Bulls can re-sign him for a bigger contract than anyone else, no??
So how doesn’t that put the Bulls in the driver’s seat?
The max offer another team could make to White would be about $199MM over four years. The Bulls would have the ability to go higher than that (five years, $269MM), but it seems pretty safe to say White’s contract will come in below both of those numbers, so the Bulls’ ability to technically make the bigger offer probably won’t give them any advantage.
They do have the benefit of holding White’s Bird rights, whereas another team wanting to make a big offer would need to use cap room or do a sign-and-trade.
So has White indicated that he intends to hit free agency?
The Cavs are in a tough spot. With no top 5 player on their team, they have to be better than the sum of their parts. In the regular season they’re great because they have above average players eating innings but in the playoffs they don’t have that 1 super duper star (Giannis, Joker, SGA, Luka, Bron, Curry) so the rest of their players need to play all-nba level. Only player that has shown can do that is Donovan. DG is always hurt, Mobley doesn’t have that dog in him and Allen seems to get played off the floor during crunch time. Cavs will need A LOT more rebounding from Hunter and for him to play better defense along the starters. I get the 6th man justification but the Cavs need their best players to be able to play in sync.
I think it’s more than past time for the Bulls and Giddey to both pull their pants up and stop measuring and do what we know they will. 4-100 or 5-125 should get it done. The NBA has paid for potential for years. If you can afford 4-80 or whatever it was for a slug like Williams you can surely pony up for Giddey. They both are dumb enough to think they’ll get their way.
I agree, the $25 mil/yr deal seems fair.
Bulls are lost and confused. Resigning their coach pretty much assures that. I don’t get why you trade for Giddey if you don’t believe in him.
Buzelis is a nice young talent. Still yrs away from contributing. Seems to me Bulls have not even settled on an offense. Just cause you want to play like Thunder. Doesn’t mean you can. All I see is a roster of players they don’t believe in.
Vucevic, Williams, Giddey, collins, Huerter, now White
First Buzelis is not years away…Second Giddey will get his around 24-25 mill…Third they wanna play like the Pacers and did a great job last year with the players they had…but need more defensive players to get stops especially in the last 5 min of games…but the offense with Cody-Giddey and Buzelis just to name a few is a pretty good starting point…need to add obviously more scoring but that will come..
Cavs are the team to beat in East. I think Hunter after Hawks stint. Is just happy to play for a contender. Starting or bench will work itself out. In the end he will be getting major mins. Cavs bench is a work in progress. Like Knicks it has to be better this year.
The Cavs had a very good bench last season and if Lonzo stays healthy, they should be even better this season. Cavs lost Jerome but will now have a full season with Hunter, replaced Ty with a more well rounded player in ball and they replace Tristan with Larry Nance who is leagues better. That being said, there are a lot of red flags regarding health. Lonzo has never played more than 63 games in a season and that was before he had to buy new knees. Hunter isn’t exactly iron man either. And Nance is known to miss at least 20 games a season. Kenny has his work cut out for him this season. He needs to minute manage the starters while being careful of not over exerting their fragile bench.
I wonder if the Trail Blazers would take Strus, Tyson, 2028 1st round swap, 2030 unprotected 1st and 26 & 28 2nd rounders for Deni Avdija. Essentially one future unprotected first, 2 2nd rounders, and a nice young affordable player with upside in Tyson.