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The Cleveland Cavaliers continue to fill out their roster, signing undrafted free agent Michael Eric of Temple University. This was a bit of a surprise. Not many undrafted free agents get signed to guaranteed NBA contracts, especially before training camp has even begun. In this case, Eric really didn't even get that many minutes for the Cavaliers Summer League team. There had been some speculation (on the part of Conrad Kaczmarek) that the Cavaliers were actually hiding Eric from other teams so that they would have less competition in trying to bring him on board the Cavaliers official roster. That seems to have been exactly what happened. Conrad, apparently, is a pretty smart guy. After the jump I will have a little bit of information on Michael Eric, and where this leaves the Cavaliers roster.
Eric is originally from Nigeria and is already 24 years old. He has an NBA body, at 6-11 and 240 pounds. He put up decent numbers last year as a senior, averaging 9 points a game on 52% shooting. He led his team in Rebounding, with 8.8 per game, and Blocks, with 2.1 per game. At one point during Summer League Byron Scott actually compared Eric to Serge Ibaka, which seems, quite frankly, ludicrous. Still, the team definitely sees something in him, and feel they can develop him. He never played any basketball of any kind until high school so the game is still a lot newer for him than probably any other 24 year old in the league. If he can develop into a guy who alters shots and plays solid defense, he might end up being valuable for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
So where does this leave the Cavaliers roster? Well, you get 15 roster spots, and you have to use 13 of them. A Cavaliers depth chart would look something like this:
C: Tyler Zeller, Michael Eric
PF: Anderson Varejao, Tristan Thompson, Jon Leuer
SF: C.J. Miles, Omri Casspi, Luke Walton
SG: Dion Waiters
PG: Kyrie Irving, Jeremy Pargo
Luke Harangody, who is not limited by silly constructs such as "positions", is also on the roster. That leaves three spots for Daniel Gibson, Alonzo Gee, Kelenna Azubuike, Samardo Samuels, Kevin Jones, or Donald Sloan. I don't think I would be real thrilled if Michael Eric took a roster spot away from Samardo Samuels.