Jared Cunningham

Cunningham played for a couple of teams in 2015/16, including 40 games in the first half of the season with the Cavaliers, then spent the following year in China. He went to summer league with the Wizards in 2017 in a bid to get back into the league was unsuccessful, and instead went to Bayern Munich in Germany, for whom he averaged 12.2 points, 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals in 21.5 minutes per game. The athletic Cunningham is a limited shooter and ball handler; that said, he runs the court well, slashes and is a great athlete. His NBA stints thus far have been built on the idea that he can convert that athleticism into above average perimeter defence to pair with incremental shooting and plenty of run-outs. He has yet to do the defensive part of that consistently, but there is still projectability there.

Atlanta - Jared Cunningham: After having his third season option declined, and assigned twice to the Bakersfield Jam already, Cunningham is playing for his place in the NBA. On the most cursory of looks, his 17.1 ppg, 4.4 rpg and 4.7 apg averages look solid. But when considered alongside the 36% shooting and the 4.1 turnovers per game average, they are made to look irrelevant. Cunningham is a weapon in transition, but he is also only a weapon in transition, and he needs significant improves urgently.

Jared Cunningham, Atlanta Hawks

Cunningham was pawned off to Atlanta by Dallas at the start of the offseason for cap space reasons after a rookie season at which he rather underwhelmed even at the D-League level. Atlanta has young guard prospects of its own in John Jenkins and Dennis Schroeder; they, along with the incumbent Jeff Teague and the returning Lou Williams, figure to take the vast majority of the guard minutes. Cunningham, then, will likely have little opportunity to improve on what went before, and what went before was not much.

Pick 24: Dallas, now picking here post-Zeller trade, takes Jared Cunningham from Oregon State, giving an old team a fresh set of athletic young legs. If they do turn over their backcourt, lose Vince and the Jasons, and bring in Deron Williams, then he, Cunningham, Roddy Boobwar and Dominique Jones will make an exciting, dynamic and good backcourt. But if Cunningham alone is asked to push the tempo, it might be a little difference. Who else will run with him? Shawn Marion and....Brian Cardinal?