The Cavaliers Just Accidentally Found The BEST Shooter In The NBA…

The Cavaliers Just Accidentally Found The BEST Shooter In The NBA…

One of the best things about the modern NBA is that guys can work their way into meaningful positions no matter what their background is more than ever teams are Finding Diamonds in the Rough from the most unlikely of places because at the end of the day all that matters is

Whether or not you can provide a boost to a squad in their areas of need shooting is a talent that will always be in high demand in the NBA but with so many players capable of expanding their shooting range you need to really rise

To the top in order to stand out and the player we’ll be talking about today has come out of nowhere to do just that today we’re talking about how the Cleveland Cavaliers have just found themselves the best volume shooter in the league that you have likely never

Heard of unless of course your favorite team either is the Cavaliers or has played them lately and that player of course is Sam Merill we’ll be going through what got him to this point why he flew so under the radar and what he’s doing now to make himself one of the

Most valuable floor spacing pieces in any rotation this season before we start though it turns out a good amount of you watching right now aren’t even subscribed to the channel so if you enjoy the content consider hitting the Subscribe Button as not only does it

Help out a ton but it also very much appreciate it now with that being said let’s begin as you probably could have guessed from the intro Sam Merill wasn’t the kind of player who was destined for the NBA from day one like many others hell he himself didn’t even see it as a

Realistic outcome for himself when he was in high school saying in an interview I felt like there were times where maybe this wasn’t going to work out in high school the NBA was never even in my sights I just didn’t think that was going to happen cuz guys where

I’m from usually don’t he grew up in a suburb outside of Salt Lake City in Utah being a huge fan of the Utah Jazz actually which sparked his initial Love of the Game from his quote though he’s not wrong you hasn’t historically been an area breeding top basketball Talent

Committing to top ranked programs on the biggest stage and then going on to be drafted after that Merill loved the sport and worked as hard as he could to achieve any level of success in it as he could but he was also realistic his original dream was simply to earn a

Scholarship to play division one basketball anywhere he was definitely one of the best players in the state of Utah in high school being named First Team all state as a junior and then leading his Bountiful High School Squad to the 4A State title in his senior

Season so he went out on top with a pretty solid resume but all of that only got him ranked as a two-star recruit according to ESPN’s recruiting database he was briefly recruited by Stanford and Princeton but he fulfilled his dream when he committed to play for Utah State

Which is actually the school that both his parents graduated from and his sister played soccer at so being an Aggie was all he knew growing up and it was very heartwarming as a result for his basketball Journey but little did he know that he still had so much more

Ahead of him the common theme throughout Merrill’s entire basketball career is that he’s only focused on doing what the team needs from him and is willing to sacrifice and embrace anything his teammates and coaches throw at him that kind of mindset from a player who had

Gotten used to being the best player on the team is one of the things that stuck out the most to his Utah State head coach Tim Dura who said in an interview he’s an unselfish player he has an innate ability to elevate the play of those around him and that’s hard to find

In a player Merill didn’t expect to come to Utah State and start right away as a freshman but halfway through his freshman season his shooting touch proved to be far too valuable to keep on the bench so he was placed in the starting lineup and from there he just

Kept progressing flawlessly he stayed all four years in his time at Utah State and he finished there as the third highest scorer in school history he was a two-time member of First Team all Mountain West he won the conference’s player of the year award in 2019 and he

Won the conferences player of the tournament in his Junior and senior Seasons as well he was a 20 point perame scorer in each of his last two seasons and he shot 42% from three over the course of his entire college career too so when it came time to take that next

Step to the NBA his shooting prowess was of course the main reason that he started to get himself on NBA Radars the issues at this time though were similar to many shooting Specialists of the past that he got lumped in with being of course that he’s not necessarily as

Naturally athletic as other prospects which then leads Scouts to fear for the worst regarding his defensive upside even if that wasn’t the reality with him and the fact that he was a 24-year-old senior did not help his case either in the draft when nowadays everybody is obsessed with developing younger talent

In the 2020 NBA draft he actually became that Year’s Mr Irrelevant as he was the final selection of the second round originally by the New Orleans Pelicans before being traded to the Milwaukee Bucks a few days later hitting on second round picks is one of the most difficult

Things to do in the NBA and when you’re the last guy chosen you’re more often than not destined for a career in the G League where your opportunities are minimal and your NBA Dream slowly drifts away and early on Merill was following that path a bit his rookie season

Happened to be with the Bucks team that went on to win the NBA finals in 2021 so you can imagine how hard it is for a late second round pick to break into a championship contenders rotation and that year he spent a good amount of time down in the g-league while playing

Garbage time minutes with the Bucks here and there the Bucks would go on to trade Merill to Memphis in a deal that landed them Grayson Allen after that first season and there was actually a chance for him to snag some real minutes in Memphis on a regular basis in his second

Season in the NBA early on that year with Memphis he played in six games where he would be given the green light to shoot threes at will to see what he was made of but then the worst possible thing for someone in his situation happened he suffered an ankle injury

That kind of killed all of the momentum he built for himself and in January that season Merill would get waved by the Grizzlies in the summer of 2022 Merill signed a deal with the Sacramento Kings to be part of their training camp roster but he would once again be waved before the

Season began he was forced to Pivot fully to the G league and in the g-league draft that year the Cleveland charge selected him first overall and this was probably the best thing that could have happened to his career the charge are obviously the Cavaliers g-league affiliate team and the

Circumstances that would result in the Cavaliers downfall in the playoff last season would end up being a blessing in disguise for Sam Merill the Cavaliers made it back to the playoffs for the first time since LeBron James left town last season but got swiftly handled by the Knicks in the first round because

They had horrible floor spacing and too much pressure was on Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland to do everything offensively they needed some bombers to surround their Playmakers with and that led the team to going on a spending spree in free agency for exactly that in free agency this past summer the

Cavaliers brought in Max stru and George neang to do exactly that which you would think would have made it even tougher for Merill to get his big break but thanks to some injuries to key guys such as Darius Garland and Evan Moy who have both missed a good amount of time this

Season there were minutes up for grabs with the Cavaliers now fully embracing the three-point line so Merill got his chance in recent years we’ve seen the emergence of players like Duncan Robinson and Isaiah Joe who were both asked to do exactly what Merill is doing now and just like those two players he

Has the ultimate green light coming off the bench specifically to ignite the offense and catch defenses off guard by bombing some threes this season Merill really started to get consistent run against the rockets in December and since then which is a 30 game sample size he has easily been one of the best

Volume three-point Shooters in the entire NBA Bar None in those 30 games he’s playing about 19 minutes per game off the bench and is knocking down 44% of his threes while taking 6 and 1/2 attempts from Deep per game for some context regarding just how much he’s

Being featured in the minutes that he gets he is taking 16.5 three-point shots per 100 possessions which is comparable to Prime Steph Curry and 2019 James Harden who was breaking usage records also unsurprisingly over the last 30 games game since Merrill’s emergence the Cavaliers have gone from being a team in

The middle of the pack three-point shooting wise to the team who takes the second most threes in the NBA while making them at the seventh best rate percentage wise in that span oh and surprise surprise the Cavaliers have also been one of the hottest teams in

The NBA in that time climbing up to third place in the standings after struggling early on and being in the play in tournament rage in the standings the reason why Sam Merill is not just a fluke is because he is legitimately a three and D player underestimate him if

You want but he competes hard on defense and has not been someone that teams have successfully hunted on that end like other Sharpshooters that have flamed out in the past Merrill’s G Le coach spoke very highly of his defense saying quote just his ability to just be physical and

To know exactly where he’s supposed to get to the ball and the spots he’s supposed to be in the great thing about Sam is he’s a two-way player he can make threes at a ridiculous clip but he’s also on the defensive end he’s somebody that you can trust every single

Possession he’s on the floor it’s always exciting to see players overcome the odds and prove they belong at the highest level and Sam Merill has undoubtedly done that he works incredibly hard to put pressure on defenses he’ll knock down a shot from any range if you give him an opening he

Never stops moving off the ball and the thing that will help him carve out a long career moving forward is the fact that he works hard defensively as well the Cavaliers may still have a bad taste in their mouths from last year’s postseason but with bombers all throughout their rotation now especially

Merill killing second units they very well could be for real this season and with that being said that’s all I have for you today make sure to like the video subscribe to the channel and comment down below what you think about Sam Merrill’s emergence thanks for watching and I’ll see you all next

Time

In this video we discuss the emergence of Sam Merrill on the Cleveland Cavaliers including how he got here, where he came from, and what makes him such a dangerous three point shooter and player.

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