Cleveland Cavaliers finally has a new point guard after Mo Williams made a sudden retirement last week. The Cavs officially signs former New Orleans Pelicans point guard Toney Douglas.
After Williams announced his sudden retirement last week, the Cavaliers has been actively in the market in search for the point guard to backup Kyrie Irving. The Cavs finally adds veteran point guard Douglas to its roster as reported by Fox Sports.
As a veteran player, Douglas is a good backup for Irving. He was drafted by Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 as 29th overall selection, but Lakers immediately traded him to New York Knicks. He spent three seasons in New York before the Knicks traded him to Houston Rockets. Douglas has played for Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors and Miami Heat before he played in China Basketball League for Jiangsu Dragons for a one-year deal in 2014.
After one year in China, Douglas came back to NBA and played for New Orleans Pelicans in 2015-2016 season. In his 62 games withthe Pelicans, he averaged 8.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game as reported by Bleacher Report. He played an average 20.7 minutes in New Orleans.
Prior to his arrival, the defending champion Cavaliers is having a serious depth deficiency in in guard and center positions. Before Douglas joined the team, Cleveland Cavaliers has only Kyrie Irving and a rookie Kay Felder in point guard before Douglas joined the team.
While in shooting guard, Cavs management has not yet re-signed free agent JR Smith, leaving the team with only Iman Shumpert and Jordan McRae in shooting guard position.
Cavaliers only has one designated center in Tristan Thompson, with no backup center behind him. Nevertheless, coach Tyron Lue can asign Cavaliers abundant power forwards as the backup center - Channing Frye and even Kevin Love or LeBron James can play in the center position.
We will see how effective the Cavaliers in an NBA pre-season game against the newly rebuilt Orlando Magic on Wednesday, Oct. 5 in its homecourt, the Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland.