Tyler Cavanaugh has barely played for the Utah Jazz this season, but he’s making the most of the opportunity of being around the team and becoming a better basketball player.
Two-way contracts are awesome. They give young players an opportunity to play for an NBA team’s G-League affiliate, be around the NBA team AND make some money. For Tyler Cavanaugh of the Utah Jazz, he’s on his second two-way contract of his career.
Last season, he signed one with the Atlanta Hawks. He played well enough to have that two-way converted into a standard NBA contract. He wasn’t kept by Atlanta, but he made the most of his opportunity, averaging five points and three rebounds per game while shooting 36 percent on threes.
The situation Cavanaugh is in right now is a lot different than the one he was in last year, though. The Hawks were, and still are, rebuilding. Utah is in win-now mode, trying to carve their way up the Western Conference standings. Understandably so, Cavanaugh has only played in a few games for the Jazz, only totaling four minutes. The Jazz aren’t trying to get an exclusive look at their young players, but they are trying to develop them.
And that’s what they’re doing with Cavanaugh. I don’t care if a player doesn’t leave the bench for the whole year, or even plays in just one game. There’s nothing more valuable for a player than being around an NBA team, seeing and learning how the league operates. I could make a funny comment about Ben Simmons right now, but I’ll leave it be. That’s well behind us.
#2WayPlayer Tyler Cavanaugh (@tycav34) recorded his 3rd double-double of the season for the @slcstars, finishing with 21 PTS & 10 REB 🌟🌟🌟@GW_MBB ↗️ @slcstars ↔️ @utahjazz pic.twitter.com/hd7ORogbv8
— NBA G League (@nbagleague) January 2, 2019
“The season has been great moving back and forth between the Salt Lake City Stars and the Jazz,” Cavanaugh told me when asked how the season has fared so far for him. “I’m learning a lot when I’m with the Jazz and translating that to a lot of in-game reps when I’m in the G-League. I’m just trying to get better each day and continue to improve.”
Tyler hit the nail on the head. Again, he isn’t playing nearly as much as he did last season, but he’s applying the wisdom he’s learning from the Jazz to the Stars. He has indeed been able to get a lot of reps in with them, as he’s played in 23 games. In those 23 games, he’s primarily played a sixth man role, coming off the bench in 15 of them. He’s averaging over 15 points, six rebounds and two assists per game while shooting 41 percent from long-range.
It’s impossible not to root for Cavanaugh, who scratched and clawed his way into the NBA. He wasn’t invited to the NBA Draft Combine in 2017, he wasn’t drafted and had few-and-far-between offers from NBA teams to play in summer league. Yet, he defied the odds. That didn’t stop him from playing his first NBA game on the same court as LeBron James, and it didn’t stop him from scoring 16 points in his first game in which he got meaningful playing time.
Again, thank you to Cavanaugh for getting back to me when I asked for comment. I, and the rest of Jazz Nation, are wishing him nothing but the best as the season progresses!