Cavs summer league: Who’s on the roster, and what you need to know

Darius Garland is on the roster but won’t feature; Dylan Windler and Kevin Porter, Jr. will star

The Cleveland Cavaliers are in full-on rebuild mode, so Summer League takes on a new-found importance. We did it with Collin Sexton and Cedi Osman last season, and now we’ll incorporate Darius Garland, Dylan Windler, and Kevin Porter, Jr. into the fold as we look for signs of the next good Cavaliers basketball team. We’ll have to be careful about ascribing too much value to the results - Kevin Knox had something of a nightmare rookie season after excelling during the summer. But basketball is basketball and it gives us stuff to talk about.

The two most interesting parts of what the Cavs will do revolve around who will be involved, and who won’t be involved. John Beilein will coach, and it’ll be our first chance to see him in action. Unfortunately, neither Darius Garland nor Collin Sexton will play in the games. Garland is on the roster and will be able to practice, but we won’t see any of that. In the long term this doesn’t matter at all, but in the short term we will follow the Cavs for entertainment and I’d be more entertained by the team’s recent top 10 picks playing.

We will be able to see Dylan Windler, selected with the 26th pick in this year’s draft, and Kevin Porter, Jr. the 30th selection that the Cavs acquired in a draft night trade. Can Porter move the ball? Does his great first step translate? Can Windler find space to get his shot off? Does he look like he’ll be able to defend at all? He was a great rebounder in college, will that translate?

The Cavs will play Summer League games in both Utah and Las Vegas. Each game in Utah will be shown live on NBA TV, and it gets started on July 1.

• They’ll play the Spurs on Monday at 7 pm.
• They’ll play the Jazz on Tuesday at 9 pm.
• They’ll play the Grizzlies on Wednesday at 7 pm.

The complete roster can be found here. It’s a short turnaround to the Vegas games, as those will get started on Friday, July 5th. Each of those games will be on NBA TV or one of the ESPN networks.