Cavaliers select Dylan Windler

The Cleveland Cavaliers added Dylan Windler with the 26th pick of the first round that was obtained by the Cavaliers in a trade deadline swap with the Houston Rockets.

The 6'8 forward averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds for the Belmont Bruins last season on a Bruins team that won the Ohio Valley Conference regular season title and earned the rarest of all rare- a small conference non-qualifier that received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they defeated Maryland in the first round.

Windler shot 54 percent from the field and even more importantly over 42 percent from three-point range.
In other words, the Cavaliers, a team in desperate need of adding outside shooting, selected a player with shooting as his top skill.
Windler reminds me of Kyle Korver a bit, although Windler is only an inch taller, he's much more of a true forward than Korver, with big-time shooting range and the ability to hit the three.
On a good team, Windler would likely find a place as a designated three-point shooting specialist as Korver has been for so many teams over the course of his career, but in Cleveland, he'll be expected to do more and there is the question mark with Windler.
Is he a shooting specialist or is he a player that could develop into more than that as a more complete player to be counted on with a larger slice of playing minutes?
If I knew the latter to be true, Windler likely wouldn't have been available at 26 and the case for the former comes from Windler's statistics, which declined against Belmont's better opponents, although he did score 35 in the NCAA win over Maryland.
Windler will have to have plays set up for him to get his shots, but he's not a guy that has to have the basketball to play well.


In the end, Cleveland needed to upgrade their shooting and Dylan Windler gives them another possible upgrade in that department.
Windler proved he could shoot at Belmont, but his struggles against better and more athletic defenders have shown that it's possible that he may not be as effective without a specialized offense.
I was middle of the road with the selection of Windler.
He has some qualities that could mesh very well with what John Beilein intends to install for the Cavaliers, but there was one player available that I was hoping Cleveland would take a swing at instead.

However, the Cavaliers weren't finished yet and began to attempt to trade for another first rounder.
Were they successful? And if so, would they then select the player that I would have taken at 26?
Tune in next time for those answers. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!