{"id":709043,"date":"2026-04-12T14:54:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709043\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T14:54:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:54:21","slug":"cavaliers-uncovered-gem-needs-one-thing-to-become-a-true-breakout-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709043\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavaliers&#8217; uncovered gem needs one thing to become a true breakout candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">Despite having the NBA\u2019s most expensive roster, the Cleveland Cavaliers have done a good job of navigating within the margins. When you four players making more than $28 million in Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen, being able to have good depth behind them is imperative.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">Head coach Kenny Atkinson came in with a player development background, but even then, it has been a pleasant surprise to see the Cavs develop young guys during a win-now window.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">From Sam Merrill to Jaylon Tyson to Craig Porter Jr. to Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin, Cleveland has been able to maximize unheralded young guys.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">Tomlin especially is the most impressive, as he didn\u2019t play basketball in high school and has shown that he can be a rotation player in the league. There is one weakness though that is holding him back.<\/p>\n<p>Tomlin\u2019s jumper needs to improve he wants to be a full-time rotation player<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Tomlin has shown a lot of great skills. From his insanely high motor to his defensive chops to his tenacity on the offensive glass, he has all the intangibles to be successful. It\u2019s just his jumper that has helped him back.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">It\u2019s not that Tomlin is afraid to shoot threes. When he\u2019s open, he has been letting them fly. The problem is, he is only knocking down 22 percent of his three-point attempts on the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">He\u2019s also only making <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/player\/1641772\/shots-dash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">21 percent<\/a> of his catch-and-shoot threes, and every single one of his attempts this year has been classified as an open or wide-open look.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">His best shooting month from three-point range came way back in December, where he knocked down 33 percent of his threes on two attempts, which is still not great, but it\u2019s the only month this season where he was above 20 percent from range.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">Tomlin\u2019s lack of a consistent jumper though is what is holding him back. Because of that, opponents dare him to shoot, and it is tough to have him out there because the spacing is compromised.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">Once Tomlin can get his jumper figured out, he will quickly become a key piece for the Cavs. He has the ability to play both the three and four spots and this is a team that needs more three-and-D wings and more size in their frontcourt. This will be a key offseason for the young forward in Atkinson\u2019s development program and if he can make that jump next year, Cleveland gets that much deeper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite having the NBA\u2019s most expensive roster, the Cleveland Cavaliers have done a good job of navigating within&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-709043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}