Don’t expect too much from Luke Travers next season
Cavs news and links for Friday, Aug. 30.
We’ve made it to Labor Day weekend. Here’s your Cleveland Cavaliers news and links for the day.
The first sip
The Cavs officially signed Luke Travers to a two-way deal. This will allow him to adjust to the NBA style of play in the G League with the Cleveland Charge. Even though Travers has five professional seasons under his belt in Australia’s NBL, there will be a learning curb in figuring out how to translate what he does best to the NBA.
The NBL is a different league. It’s a much more physical, but less skilled. There is no defensive three seconds which fosters a much more slow-paced, grind-it-out style in their 40-minute games. Additionally, seasons are only five months and 28 games. That is closer to a high school schedule than it is to an NBA one. These are just a few of the many adjust Travers will be contending with next season.
Travers’s game fit well in the NBL. He was able to use his frame to be a good positional defender while picking his spots offensively. You’d like to see Travers do that in the NBA. However, how he goes about doing that in a more skilled and spaced-out game will be very different.
Travers will likely be asked to play the wing after playing power forward last season with Melbourne. To do that he must become a much more willing shooter and capable ball-handler than he’s shown in Summer League.
This will be a transition season for the soon-to-be 23-year-old. It’s much more likely that he spends the majority of his time with the Charge like Emoni Bates did last season. That’s okay and likely a necessary step in his development.
Bringing Travers over is a move with the future in mind. This next season will be about finding out what the Cavs have in Travers as a prospect and not about what he can immediately provide on the court.
Random Cavalier of the Day - Raul Neto
Neto was brought in to be the Ricky Rubio stand-in for the 2022-23 season. He played 48 games with the Cavs averaging 3.3 points and 1.6 assists per game.
Neto’s most impressive outing of the season came on Jan. 4 in a two-point victory over the Phoenix Suns. Here’s what Chris Manning wrote about Neto after the win.
As for Neto, he put in a strong 20-minute shift. He was 5-7 from the field (and probably had 2-3 more shots available to him if he wanted them) and grinded on defense against Chris Paul. He defended full court and picked up a steal and a block for all of his effort. It was the exact 20 minutes they needed from Neto in a rare extended stint from him.
Neto suffered a knee injury last August while playing in the World Cup for Brazil. He returned to the court for the Olympics this summer in a bench role.
WNBA schedule this weekend
- Indiana Fever vs. Chicago Sky, Friday, 7:30 PM
- New York Liberty vs. Seattle Storm, Friday, 10 PM
- Connecticut Sun vs. Washington Mystics, Saturday, 3 PM
- Indiana Fever vs. Dallas Wings, Sunday, 4 PM
- Las Vegas Aces vs. Phoenix Mercury, Sunday, 4 PM
- Full schedule here