According to various sources, the Cleveland Cavaliers are releasing a player that they didn't sign too long ago, that player being Larry Sanders. Larry came to the Cavs after Cleveland signed Andrew Bogut, but an unfortunate injury had Bogut out for the rest of the season. The Cavaliers then chased replacement options for the Australian center and decided to sign Larry Sanders who had taken a break from basketball and was wanting to rejuvenate his career in the league. Sanders didn't get to play too much for the Cavaliers, as they had his lineup for the D-league team, Canton Charge in an attempt to help him gain back his form.
Now the Cavs have decided they don't want him anymore and would prefer another center. This is official according to The Vertical.
The new signing
Seven feet, three inches is the height newly signed Edy Tavares stands. Edy or Walter Tavares has been playing his recent basketball in the Toronto Raptors D-League team and has apparently been a big contributor to their current success in the D-league playoffs. This season, Edy played 48 d-league games for the Raptors 905 team, averaging 10.6 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 2.7 blocks per game. While those stats may look brilliant, let's just remember Kay Felder averages 30 Points Per Game in the d-league, sometimes the talent doesn't translate over to the NBA level as substantially.
Walter has played on one NBA team in his career, that being the Atlanta Hawks. Playing 11 games for them in the 2015-16 NBA season, he averaged 2.3 points per game, 1.9 rebounds per game and 0.5 blocks per game in just 6.6 Minutes Per Game. While he didn't actually play enough minutes to prove himself in the NBA, these statistics sure don't show him much love.
Is this a bad risk?
Maybe Larry Sanders wasn't playing great for the Cavaliers in his short run this season, but he didn't get the chance to. He appeared in 5 games this season, only logging on average 2.6 minutes per game. With the limited time, he was only able to score four points and block one shot in his Cavaliers career.
Larry had proven to be a vital player in the NBA in the past, as shown when he played for the Bucks a few years ago. But maybe the rust of returning to the league after a long layoff hurt him a little, although he was playing very solid basketball for the Cavs d-league team, maybe they should've just given him a chance. But as it sits now, Larry is no longer a Cavalier, and he has been replaced by Edy Tavares. Edy doesn't really have much NBA experience heading into the playoffs, so this could be a huge risk. I guess it just gets us all wondering, what it could've been if Andrew Bogut never got injured.
