January 18: Nance’s 10-day deal is now official, per the Cavaliers.
January 16: The Cavaliers are signing big man Pete Nance to a 10-day contract, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweets.
Cleveland is essentially rewarding a player already in its organization. Nance has averaged 13.5 points and 7.9 rebounds per game this season for the Cavs’ G League affiliate, the Cleveland Charge.
Nance went undrafted last year after spending four years at Northwestern and another with North Carolina. He was signed to an Exhibit 10 contract in September by the Cavs, then waived during training camp.
The Cavaliers needed to add another player to their 15-man roster after dropping to 13 players when they bought out Ricky Rubio, who announced his retirement earlier this month. NBA teams can’t carry fewer than 14 players on standard contracts for more than two weeks at a time, so the Cavs had a January 18 deadline to fill Rubio’s roster spot.
Nance is the son of former Cavs legend Larry Nance and the younger brother of Larry Nance Jr., who spent parts of four seasons with Cleveland.
His name should’ve been Barry, Harry or Gary so it can rhyme with Larry.
Oh for Pete’s sake…
Pete was also a standout in the Summer League for the Cavaliers. His numbers look pedestrian until you realize that in the Summer and G-League’s he was a backup to Evan Mobley’s older brother Isaiah who was the Summer League championship game MVP and is posting 25 points 11 boards and 3 assists per game in this year’s G-League. Nance has a path to a 2-way deal if he can perform. Word is that the Cavaliers will move Craig Porter Jr to a Standard contract in the next few weeks. That would allow them to add Nance to a 2-way deal. Nance opened some eyes with a triple double about a week or so ago in the G-League. JB is cautious with young or new players so he will have to prove himself in practice. For a team without a first rounder in 2023 we could do a lot Worse than Emoni Bates, Craig Porter Jr and Pete Nance as pickups.
Pete seems like Wade to me. A big who can hit the three but is such a team player he is reluctant to shoot too much. I would drill him to shoot 5- 10 every game. Teach him that if he doesn’t shoot it a lot he’s hurting his team.
Very similar to Wade except that he has more skills than Wade. For example he is better at passing the ball. He also appears to rebound better. Only time will tell he can match Wade defensively.