Sam Merrill has gone from roster afterthought to a name the Cavaliers may have to seriously weigh in trade talks.
That’s the strange spot Cleveland is in now. A player once pulled from the G League scrap heap has built enough value that contenders are paying attention, and the Cavs have to figure out whether keeping him is the smarter move or whether his value can be used to patch a hole elsewhere.
The logic behind moving Merrill is pretty straightforward: Cleveland has more bodies at his spot than it used to. Tyrese Proctor has carved out real minutes.
Rookie Meleek Thomas has done the same. Add Merrill into that mix, and you’ve got a crowded group fighting for the same rotation space in Kenny Atkinson’s system.
“If you’re a team in the situation that the Cavs are in, where there are some financial restrictions that you have and there’s a lot of roster inflexibility,” Fedor said on the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, “the general way that you could potentially improve the roster is by trading from a position of strength and addressing a weakness. I think everybody would say the general position that Sam Merrill plays has become a position of strength for this team.”
And this isn’t just theoretical interest. Fedor reported that the Denver Nuggets wanted Merrill in the Peyton Watson trade and preferred him over Max Strus. That kind of detail gives a real sense of how the league views him.
At the same time, Cleveland clearly values him. The Cavs drafted him with the first pick in the G League draft, developed him from a pure spot-up shooter into a legitimate two-way wing, handed him a four-year contract, and arguably chose him over Ty Jerome in the process.
Atkinson has also been vocal about what Merrill brings beyond the box score, describing him as a “connector” who helps the offense hum even when he isn’t lighting it up from deep.
Still, the numbers tell part of the story. Merrill has averaged 7.7 points per game while shooting 38.6% overall and 32.6% from three on 4.8 attempts. For a player whose reputation is built on shooting, that looks like a dip.
The explanation, according to Fedor, is an elbow issue that worsened as the season went on.
“A source told me recently that he had a shot in his elbow to try and help reduce the swelling and inflammation and stuff like that,” Fedor said. “It was clearly a hindrance to the way that he was playing.”
Merrill, by all accounts, tried to push through it. He didn’t want to sit out, and he didn’t want to feed the idea that health problems are part of his profile. Eventually, though, the organization stepped in, got the issue treated, and now Cleveland is hoping his production climbs as the season moves along.
If that happens, the trade conversation only gets louder. Around the league, teams are already looking at Cleveland’s roster and asking the same question: “Who’s the one that we might be able to get away from Cleveland?”
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