With the loss of Dante Exum, KPJ still not being with the team, Garland out with a shoulder injury, Sexton missing the most recent game with an ankle injury, and Delly having an unusually long recovery time from concussion, the Cavs are in desperate need of ball handlers. The last few games have been ugly, often running with players out of position due to necessity. There’s one free agent that I think would be great for this team in the meantime, maybe even in the future too, and that’s Allonzo Trier.
Trier is an absolute monster at attacking the basket. For most people, they see that and it just translates as “he’s a good dunker,” and trier can pull off highlight dunks, but that’s not why I say that. I say that because he simply tries his hardest to get to the rim every time he has to create offense, and he succeeds very often. Half of his career 2pt attempts come at the rim, and he shoots 60% on them. He also has a passable mid range game that he’ll go to, but it’s not really a main option for him, he usually only takes them when he’s given space for a clean look.
There are two specific stats that really show how great he is at attacking the basket aside from straight FG% at the rim. In Allonzo Trier’s career, 6.7% of his 624 field goal attempts come from 3-10 ft. Put simply, you don’t see that very often. What that means, in this context, is that when he really tries to get to the basket, very rarely does he fail at doing so. A lot of players will try to get to the basket but won’t be able to get quite all the way and have to settle for these floater range, 3-10 ft shots. They’re close to the basket, so they have the appearance of being good shots, but for a lot of players they drag efficiency way down because they take significant portions of their shots from there. If you can’t get all the way to the basket to get an actual layup, these shots are as good as just taking an actual jumpshot from the mid range. Essentially they’re shots that should be taken mostly as a last resort.
The other stat that shows how fearsome he is attacking the basket is his free throw attempts. In his career, his FTr+ is 165. What that means is that his rate of free throw attempts per fg attempt is 65% higher than the average NBA player over that timespan. That’s in the range of where guys like Trae Young, Kyle Lowry, Dinwiddie, Derozan, and Booker were in 2020. His ability to absorb contact and draw fouls when driving is elite. It’s helped him have an above average TS% for his career. Trier is also a guy that can do this stuff on his own, he can create his own offense. That’s big when filling in for a depleted team that already isn’t good on offense and lacks real creators. In his career, only 27% of his 2pt attempts have been assisted. He’s shown a nice ability to break down guys to get to the basket using his dribble, not by having offense created for him. For comparison, Lebron James has had one season with a lower % on 2pt attempts. Lastly, Trier is a good shooter too. He shoots a career 38.4% (71/185) from deep on decent volume, 5.1 attempts per 100 possessions, which would rank 6th on the Cavs, tied with Collin Sexton. I really want Allonzo Trier on the Cavs, and also for him to have a significant role in the offense.
However, with every player comes his downsides. Trier's specifically is playmaking and defense. Throughout college and his short career, Trier was seen as a ballhog. He's not very fond of passing, and likes to create offense himself. That's not very good, but it's not as much of a negative as it seems. Good offense is good offense, if you can put the ball in the basket efficiently then you should be able to do that as much as possible as long as you remain efficient.
The other downside is his defense. He has never been a good defender, but I'm not as worried about that as other people if he was going to be on the Cavs. I'm sure there's a place to hide him on the league leader in defensive rating.
After evaluating the good and the bad with Trier, combined with the desperate and immediate need at guard on this Cavs team, I think that he'd be a great addition to this team and one that could really help us win some games.
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