Lamar Stevens: Junkyard Dog

[Dr No]

He rebounds the ball and he's not afraid to attack the rim when presented. He won't always finish, but he's not gonna just be terrified when the other team leaves him open.

Other thing here, importantly, is that he's a vet minimum contract while Okoro is now a 8 and 9 million dollar a year player.

Lamar, being better than Okoro, is a valuable player to have on a roster at 1.7 million a year. Honestly I'd say a really good job by Altmann finding him. He's better than a majority of vet minimum players in the NBA, I have no doubt.

Okoro at 8 million a year? Not good.


It's why I'm hesitant to just toss Stevens into a trade.

It's gonna be hard to find someone who can produce like this at a contract this cheap. And as far as I can tell, his contract is already guaranteed next year at 1.9 million.

If you trade him and some other guys for an overall upgrade, you're gonna have to fill out the vet minimum spots and you probably won't find someone as good as Lamar.

He’s one year behind Wade and on a similar career path. If all continues as it is now, he will likely sign a contract similar to Wade’s next summer.

 

[pinoycavsfan]

Very encouraging to see him shoot and make 3s without hesitation. One thing going for him compared to okoro is that when you closeout hard on him he still has a midrange game to go to. Active on the boards and not a liability on defense. I think he is one more off season work away from becoming a good 3&d wing.

 

[cavsfever]

Really Stevens doesn’t seem very talented or athletic to me but he’s very active and aggressive and never intimidated in any situation.

Honestly he doesn’t seem like a starter-caliber guy but he does contribute and is a net positive, which is more than you can say for some of our bench guys…

 

[buzzdog]

I'm getting a bit tired of seeing him get blocked at the rim. He needs to figure out an up-fake or something. Otherwise it's good to see him starting to sink some threes. His midrange game has always been a strength.

 

[pinoycavsfan]

I'm getting a bit tired of seeing him get blocked at the rim. He needs to figure out an up-fake or something. Otherwise it's good to see him starting to sink some threes. His midrange game has always been a strength.

He exposes the ball and does not adjust when going up. Needs to learn to use his body to shield against shot blockers. Playing against allen and mobley in practice should help him overcome his finishing.

 

[pinoycavsfan]

 

[buzzdog]

He exposes the ball and does not adjust when going up. Needs to learn to use his body to shield against shot blockers. Playing against allen and mobley in practice should help him overcome his finishing.

You'd think practicing against Allen and Mobley that Stevens would have a whole menu of moves under the hoop. Unless going against those 2 made him just give up.

 

[Alec]

He needs all Okoro’s mins going forward. Not gonna pretend like he’s an all star, but he seems to know what he should be doing and he plays a lot less scared than Okoro.

I’m sure I’ll hate him in a week and regret this post.

Welp, 48 hours. Bench 0Stev0ns. Isaac’s older brother.

 

[All4One1ForAll]

He’s just really bad. Worse than Okoro. Okoro has actually been good on defense since a bad start to the season. Stevens gets back doored constantly, doesn’t box out, is way too slow to recover from screens, and can’t contain penetration. People think he defends because occasionally he’ll look physical out there or he’ll yell at teammates, but if you actually watch him over the course of a game it’s clear he’s not a good defender. He might be slightly better on offense than Okoro, but he’s still so awful on that end that it doesn’t make a difference.

 

[Lee]

He’s just really bad. Worse than Okoro. Okoro has actually been good on defense since a bad start to the season. Stevens gets back doored constantly, doesn’t box out, is way too slow to recover from screens, and can’t contain penetration. People think he defends because occasionally he’ll look physical out there or he’ll yell at teammates, but if you actually watch him over the course of a game it’s clear he’s not a good defender. He might be slightly better on offense than Okoro, but he’s still so awful on that end that it doesn’t make a difference.

Its almost like Stevens isnt a SG like i said pages ago and i like him, he really isnt a starter, he is a back of the roster hard working combo foward.

 

[Comeback kid]

Heal quickly Deano!

 

[CavsKermit]

He’s just really bad. Worse than Okoro. Okoro has actually been good on defense since a bad start to the season. Stevens gets back doored constantly, doesn’t box out, is way too slow to recover from screens, and can’t contain penetration. People think he defends because occasionally he’ll look physical out there or he’ll yell at teammates, but if you actually watch him over the course of a game it’s clear he’s not a good defender. He might be slightly better on offense than Okoro, but he’s still so awful on that end that it doesn’t make a difference.

Yeah, his rebounding is really, really poor for his size. What people don't get is opposing teams are putting multiple bodies on Allen and Mobley and Stevens should be feasting in that scenario, but he's not. He doesn't even really box out on the defensive boards, too often because he's looking to run out and get a cheap bucket the other way. That's more for his benefit than the team's and hopefully it's something they can get through to him in a film session.

The reality is that if you judge Stevens based on his salary slot, he's fine. Cedi is fine at his salary slot. Okoro is fine at his salary slot. Neto and Lopez are fine for league minimum guys. But every fan base is convinced that their bench guys are better than they are deserve more run, then they get more run, and all the warts manifest themselves. We need more shooting and a backup center.

 

[dms]

We need more shooting and a backup center.

Lopez is a giant waste of a roster spot. As I've said before, one of this regimes biggest gaffes was letting Hartenstein walk when we drafted Mobley because they thought they had no use for another center. Hell, I'd take Moses Brown back over Lopez, he'd at least bang some underneath and he could score. Hopefully they signed Lopez to be a mentor because if they signed him to play they made a major mascalculation

 

[CavsKermit]

Lopez is a giant waste of a roster spot. As I've said before, one of this regimes biggest gaffes was letting Hartenstein walk when we drafted Mobley because they thought they had no use for another center. Hell, I'd take Moses Brown back over Lopez, he'd at least bang some underneath and he could score. Hopefully they signed Lopez to be a mentor because if they signed him to play they made a major mascalculation

Lopez is fine as your third string-center in the bruiser role. He's on a league-minimum deal which is what you pay third-string vets. The problem is he's our second-string center. It's the same with Neto. You'd rather have Neto over the G League guys we had to give minutes to last season, but you'd rather have Rubio as the first PG off the bench.

Obviously, the Cavs are way overpaying for what LeVert and Love provide and there's way too much redundancy amongst LeVert, Okoro, Stevens, and to a lesser extent Cedi. Guys who play passable to good defense with streaky to non-existent shooting are still valuable, you just don't need four of them on the same roster, and you REALLY don't need four of them on this roster. I get that some fans want JBB gone, but unless a new coach has a magic wand that grants the ability to shoot from 3, the problems that arise from our absence of spacing and roster imbalance aren't going away.

 

[RubioFanLifer]

Stevens to me is a power forward. He's just too slow and not overly skilled to play SF position. He's also pretty thick and especially in contrast to a twig boy Mobley.