Brian Windhorst on Why the Cavs Re-signed Sam Merrill & Not Ty Jerome – Sports4CLE, 7/1/25

Brian Windhorst on Why the Cavs Re-signed Sam Merrill & Not Ty Jerome – Sports4CLE, 7/1/25

Let’s turn our attention to the Cavs. National NBA analyst Brian Winhorst uh with his thoughts on why the Cavs did not resign Ty Jerome, but did resign Sam Merrill.
I don’t think they chose Sam Merryill over Ty Jerome. I think they chose Lonzo Ball over Ty Jerome. The Cavs looked at what happened to them in the playoffs and saw that their one of their big problems was perimeter defense. And while Tai was awesome this year in the playoffs against Indiana when they went down, he could not get a stop. They attacked him every single time. And so Lonzo Ball, if he’s healthy, and of course it’s an if, if he’s healthy, he will give them a better opportunity defensively. And so the choice that they made was to retain the perimeter defense and the shooting and give up some of the playmaking. Lonzo Ball is not a dynamic offensive creator like Tai Jerome is. Lonzo Ball will not get the get into the paint and distribute the way Tai did. He is not going to be that sort of triple threat that we saw. Um, and he’s probably not going to be the three-point shooter that he was because even though he’s improved as a three-point shooter, Jerome was awesome as a three-point shooter this year. They are going to absolutely be giving stuff up on that part of the ball. But they are going to get a player that if he’s healthy is a significantly better defender, better size, better positionality, flexibility, better defense, unquestionably. It’ll be interesting to see if Lonzo Ball can stay healthy. Um, if he can, he could do what uh they need him to

Hear what Brian Windhorst had to say on the Cavaliers re-signing Sam Merrill and not Ty Jerome.

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