2. Shabazz Muhammad SG/SF
While Muhammad doesn’t help much on defense, he could provide a much-needed scoring boost for the second unit. Muhammad has always been a streaky player, but when he gets going, he’s one of the league’s more impressive scorers off the bench.
He’s athletic, can get to the rim and can knock down open threes. An interesting side note is that Muhammad appeared in 160 games over the last two seasons, playing significant minutes. Injuries are always possible, but for a team that’s been on the wrong end of the injury bug year after year, Muhammad would be a relatively safe bet to plug in and play all season.
He averaged 9.9 points per game playing roughly 20 minutes a night in 2016-17, but throughout his Timberwolves tenure, it was no surprise to see Shabazz carrying Minnesota’s offense for long stretches of time with the starters on the bench.
Cleveland’s bench did not have a guy with his kind of explosiveness last season and if you mix him into the Cavs’ impressive core, it should only elevate his game.
Muhammad made roughly $4 Mil. last season and the Cavs would likely have use their MLE to sign him, but compared to some of the other free-agents on the market, there aren’t many better scorers the Cavs could acquire at that price.
Similar to the idea of signing Patterson, if the Cavs could trade for Anthony after already signing Muhammad, Cleveland’s offense would be even more lethal than it’s already been for the last three seasons.
Another positive aspect of getting Muhammad is that he turns 25 in November and this is a guy whose full potential may not yet be discovered, so he could turn into part of Cleveland’s long-term future and have some good years ahead of him.
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