Good morning. It’s Sunday, November 23. The Cleveland Cavaliers are 11-6. They play at home against the LA Clippers today at 6 pm.
The First Sip
The Cavs’ biggest swing of last season was trading for De’Andre Hunter.
Making that trade was not only a bet on Hunter being a talent upgrade over Caris LeVert and Georges Niang — but also that Hunter could polish his game enough to become a perfect fit in Cleveland’s starting lineup.
Hunter has always had two shortcomings. First, he’s an underwhelming rebounder for his size. And second, he became a ball-stopper in Atlanta, rarely making the extra pass or creating for others.
Neither one of those would fly in Cleveland.
The Cavs were looking for someone with size who could complement the starting five and chip in on the glass. They needed a plus-rebounder at the small forward position. Furthermore, they couldn’t afford to have any dead weight on offense. That meant being a threat to score, and also, a threat to pass the ball.
Hunter has worked on both of these things. He’s currently averaging career-highs in both rebounds and assists. The advanced analytics follow this same trend. Hunter is in the 81st percentile for defensive rebounding percentage and the 76th percentile in assist percentage, both career-bests by a huge margin.
Improving in these categories is straightforward. If you want to get more rebounds, you simply have to be more active in pursuing the ball. Want to average more assists? Pass the ball more often. Hunter isn’t doing anything spectacular; he’s mainly just swinging the ball and making the extra pass, but this is what has been asked of him. The more that Hunter can provide as a rebounder and playmaker, the harder the Cavs become to beat.
Cleveland still isn’t checking all of the boxes they’d like. The team is struggling to clean the defensive glass and their offense is a far cry from their league-best rating from last season. But, extra efforts on the margins from someone like Hunter have gone a long way to keeping the bottom from falling out.
