The Cleveland Cavaliers had one final pick in the second round at number fifty-six and selected Luke Travers, a 6-7 guard from Australia.
Travers is twenty years old and instead of coming to the United States to play college basketball, Travers stayed home to turn pro in the Australian professional league, where he has played three seasons for the Perth Wildcats.
Travers has seen his playing time increase every season but playing against grown men and long-time professionals has been an adjustment.
Last season Travers averaged seven points, five rebounds, and two assists in twenty-two minutes per game for Perth but I've seen some websites list him as a forward, others as a guard and he shot only forty-one percent and just twenty-five percent from three-point distance, so Travers appears to be very raw and perhaps will turn out to be a tweener that isn't big enough to play power forward or a solid enough shooter to play a pure wing position.
Still, he's only twenty and could develop into an NBA player but I think the odds are against him at this point, Travers is most likely to wind up as a solid national player that may never reach the Cavaliers training camp but considering the roster situation and the point in the draft, Travers was acceptable as a pick to hold his rights and may be one of those names that see their rights move from team to team in order to make trades work.
The Cleveland Cavaliers took another familiar name with the forty-ninth pick (round two) that they purchased from the Sacramento Kings when they drafted Isaiah Mobley from USC.
The older brother of 2021 Cleveland first-rounder Evan Mobley, Isaiah Mobley is a 6'10 forward that averaged fourteen points and eight rebounds per game last season for the Trojans in making the All-Pac 12 first team.
Isaiah Mobley connected on thirty-six percent of his three-point attempts last season, so he can shoot from the perimeter, is noted as being a good defender, and is reported to have similar strengths to Evan as far as his offensive game and especially his passing.
However, the knock on the elder Mobley is that he tends to gain weight (238 pounds) and has been known to have less than strong conditioning habits.
That can often be a red flag for players as they have to work harder to stay in shape as they age than when they are young, so weight issues for young players don't tend to vanish only because they are in the NBA.
Considering the positive aspects of Mobley's game, one would think that he could have been a middle to late first-rounder, so the questions about Mobley's weight, conditioning, and effort had to contribute to why Mobley was available in the middle of round two.
Mobley will play for the Cavaliers summer league team in Las Vegas next month and will likely sign a two-way contract to allow him to receive minutes with the G-League Cleveland Charge and still be used when needed by the Cavaliers if injuries require it.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were connected to several players at the fourteenth pick of the first round and the final pick of the "lottery teams".
The two players that were most often mentioned as realistic possibilities were both available with the Cavaliers selection with Kansas senior Ochai Agbaji and Ohio State freshman Malaki Branham there for the picking.
I don't watch nearly the amount of college basketball as I once did, so I relied on a few videos and the recommendations of others to form an opinion of who I was hoping to see Cleveland add and I could see reasons to add either of the two players.
Agbaji played four seasons for Kansas and was the Big 12 player of the year when he led the Jayhawks to the national title averaging 18.8 points per game, shooting 47.5 from the floor and forty percent from three-point range.
Branham averaged thirteen points a game, shot almost fifty percent, and was playing extremely well at the end of the season for Ohio State.
Agbaji is the better shooter, has the higher floor of the two players, and is expected to contribute faster, while Branham may have the chance to be the better player long-term, he may also have a higher chance of busting.
I would have been okay with either player but I also would have wondered a bit about either and after Cleveland selected Ochai Agbaji, I wondered even more.
The 6'5 Agbaji certainly has the shooting range and I think at worst, he will be a player that can knock down the open shot but I am not sure how he will do at creating his shot and not being the focus of the offense as he was at Kansas.
Agbaji improved in each of his four years at Kansas and that is another problem in today's NBA players that stay the full four years at college tend to be more mature and ready to play than younger players but they also don't make the improvements from year to year that younger players do.
In other words, the player that shows up as a rookie is pretty much what you will see for the rest of their career.
What I also found interesting were the comments by Koby Altman that the team sees Agbaji as a "2", not a "3" (shooting guard more than a small forward) and that's interesting because that's the position that the returning Collin Sexton, Caris LeVert, for a chunk of last season Isaac Okoro plays.
If Cleveland sees Agbaji as a 3, perhaps something more could be about to happen with the roster as I just don't see enough minutes for all four of those players to be pleased.
Collin Sexton is still a restricted free agent and I suppose the team could allow him to leave or work out a trade, LeVert has one season remaining on his contract, and Okoro has been inconsistent offensively, so there is some room for movement.
The Cavaliers biggest need was and is at wing/three/small forward and I'm not sure that Agbaji changes anything there other than adding some outside shooting, which they also need.
Still, I think Agabaji has a chance to be a nice player if not an impactful one and I still think that situation seems a bit crowded and could see a shakeup before the season.
Cleveland has been rumored to be one of the teams mentioned to be in talks with the San Antonio Spurs for Dejounte Murray, who would be a major addition of course but I'm not sure that the Cavaliers have what the Spurs are looking for in a package for Murray, especially if the Atlanta Hawks are offering John Collins as is also rumored.
Cleveland bought the Sacramento Kings second rounder before the draft for 1.75 million and the rights to Euro Sasha Venzenko, who will likely never play in the NBA, to give them three second-rounders, and to my surprise, the team actually used all of those choices and I'll be giving them a look tonight or over the weekend.
