Immediate Impacts: Can Jaylon Tyson fix the Cleveland Cavaliers’ roster problems?

Welcome to our new offseason series: “Immediate Impacts.” Most rookies don’t provide positive value to their teams right out of the gate. But as we saw last season with guys like Jaime Jaquez Jr., Dereck Lively II, and Brandin Podziemski, some rookies can help their teams from Day 1. Over the next few months, we’ll break down ways that members of this incoming class can have that very effect.

To me, the Cleveland Cavaliers have one of the most fascinating teams in basketball. They have four top 50 caliber player players on their roster (one – Donovan Mitchell – is arguably a top 10 player). Yet, they seem to play better when two of those four pieces (one of Mitchell/Darius Garland and one of Evan Mobley/Jarrett Allen) are missing from the equation.

The reason for this is outside the scope of this article (but it is within the realm of this one). The bottom line is that if they ever want to become more than a good but not great Eastern Conference team, they need to add wings/forwards who can give their lineups some cohesion.

In the 2024 NBA Draft, the Cavaliers used their 20th overall pick to select someone they hope may be able to fill this void in Jaylon Tyson. At nearly 22 years old (his birthday is a month after the start of the season), Tyson should theoretically be ready to perform right out of the gate. That line of reasoning appears especially more convincing after a strong Summer League showing in Las Vegas.

But what exactly is Tyson’s game like? And is it of the variety that can help take the Cavaliers to the next level in 2024-25?

What Tyson Can Do Right Now

I first caught wind of Tyson at the 2024 NBA Draft Combine when I asked Richard Styman (@MavsDraft on Twitter) for the Jaime Jaquez of the 2024 Draft Class. He immediately mentioned Tyson’s name, citing poor contexts at Texas and Texas Tech (the schools Tyson spent his freshmen and sophomore years of college at) as the main reason why he wasn’t showing up on too many people’s radars.

When I asked him that question, I intended it to mean who is an older player who will go later in the first round but is ready to factor in a playoff rotation right away. What I didn’t know at the time is just how similar their games are. Like Jaquez, Tyson is kind of a throwback player offensively. He leans heavily on craft and sound footwork to create separation on his drives and dribble jumpers.

Tyson is very comfortable with the ball in his hands. At California, he was empowered to run a high volume of ballscreens (as you saw in some of the clips above). And although he’s not an elite passer/decision-maker, he’s still a pretty good one (especially for being a wing-sized player). And when you combine that with his ability to score at all three levels, that makes for a pretty strong pick-and-roll ball handler. Last season, Tyson was in the 90th percentile in pick-and-roll ball handler frequency and the 83rd percentile in pick-and-roll efficiency – grading out as “excellent,” according to Synergy Sports.

Unlike Jaquez, Tyson is a good shooter/spacer. Last season, Tyson only hit 36% of his triples, but that was mainly because he was the primary option and forced to take many of those shots off the dribble (69.4% of his shots were dribble jumpers). When you look at his catch-and-shoot jumpers (which are more indicative of a player’s actual shooting prowess), Tyson was in the 64th percentile in efficiency last year and the 90th percentile in the season before.

Jaquez vs. Tyson College Career 3-Point Shooting*

Player Name 3-Point % 3-Point Attempts Per 100 Possessions

Jaime Jaquez Jr. 32.8% 5.1

Jaylon Tyson 37.2% 7.2

*Data Provided By College Reference

Defensively, Tyson doesn’t tout Jaquez’s motor or agility. His tape is littered with instances where he fails to box out or struggles to chase his assignment around off-ball screens. But Tyson is still a sturdy fellow who can switch on to bigger players in short spurts (as seen in the clip below), meaning that he can function as more of a power forward on defense when necessary.

(Sidebar: Tyson’s physicality also makes him a strong offensive rebounder. Last season he finished in the 66th percentile in offensive rebounding percentage in the Pac-12.)

Plus, Tyson does offer some defensive playmaking. Last year, he finished in the 58th percentile in block rate and the 69th percentile in steal rate in the Pac-12 (per KenPom). The latter is evidence of his strong feel as a basketball player (like Jaquez, he’s an astute cutter/off-ball move). Overall, I doubt that Tyson is an uber-impactful defender early in his career, but I think he does enough to be a neutral, which will allow Cleveland to profit off of his deluxe offense.

Is Tyson The Player The Cavaliers Need?

Earlier, I mentioned the Cavaliers needing wings/forwards to make their roster make more sense. But they can’t be just any type of wings/forwards. They need ones who provide enough defense to make up for their offensively-slanted guards and who offer enough spacing and shooting to account for their defensively-slanted bigs.

Tyson seems to have the makings of someone who can be a good NBA shooter. However, while his ball skills are exceptional, they aren’t the kind that is needed to bolster this team’s spacing. What the Cavaliers require is someone who can play with pace, someone who can catch a kickout pass and immediately drive a closeout.

From what I’ve seen, Tyson’s game is more measured and probing. This type of approach can work alongside other ball-dominant players, but the Cavaliers’ roster issues are so problematic that they don’t have the margin for error to properly withstand another player like this. Their situation requires an exceptional off-ball offensive player, not an average/good one.

This says nothing about the defensive end of the ball. If they are going to stick with Garland and Mitchell, the Cavaliers are going to need a wing stopper. Tyson finds ways to contribute on that end of the floor, but he doesn’t have the lateral agility to be a team’s primary point-of-attack defender.

This isn’t to say that Tyson won’t be an immediate impact. In fact, his very existence in this article series is a sign that I believe in his ability to make the Cavaliers a better team. He just isn’t the solution to all their problems.

But I’ll say this, if the Cavaliers finally take their medicine and split their core four in half, Tyson’s mature game will allow him to be an integral piece of their re-tooled roster.