Sam Merrill’s Multi-Year Deal With The Cleveland Cavaliers Is The Team Planning For Next Season

The Cleveland Cavaliers have signed guard Sam Merrill to a multi-year deal, the team announced on Tuesday. The Cavs did not disclose the deal’s terms, but league sources says it’s a three-year deal with non-guarantees in years two and three.

Cleveland has an open roster spot, so no move is needed to free up a roster spot.

This is not a deal for the 2022-23 — it’s for the future. Barring injury, Merrill is not going to play this year. He has been on the roster on a 10-day deal and only saw time in garbage time one game totally four minutes. Which makes sense — it’s late in the season and the Cavs are playing real games. Even if he has a skill that the Cavs need, it’s more than reasonable for J.B. Bickerstaff to not throw Merrill into the rotation and mess with what’s been built on a player who hasn’t played with this group before. If he wasn’t going to alter plans and play Danny Green, he wasn’t going to alter plans to play Merrill.

This is a deal for the future. The structure of the deal is one of the Cavs have used in the past with players like Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens. Both Wade and Stevens started out on two-way deals, impressed in the G League and the signed multi-year deals with multiple non-guaranteed years on the back end.

Wade outplayed that deal coming into this season and is now on an extension that keeps him in Cleveland through the 2025-26 season. Stevens has one more year on his contract that the Cavs could opt to not guarantee, but it would be surprise for that to happen at this point. He may end up on the Wade path get a new deal that replaces the end of the old one.

It’s too soon to say if that will happen with Merrill. But what he does best (shoot three-pointers, often on the move) is a skill the Cavs need. For his G League career — including 18 games with the Charge this year — he’s a 42.1% three-pointer shooter on high volume. In four years at Utah State, Merrill was a 42% three-pointer shooter while shooting 89.1% from the line — a good indicator that his shooting is legit.

His transition to the pros hasn’t been seamless, though. He spent his rookie year with the Milwaukee Bucks and was part of their 2021 championship team, but didn’t play much. He signed with the Memphis Grizzlies before last season, but had a serious ankle sprain that required surgery and was waived on Jan. 1. He ended up with the Charge after being waived by the Sacramento Kings and then picked by the Charge No. 1 overall in the G League Draft.

It’s with the Charge, though, where he’s found footing, including a 32-point game this season where he made 10 three-pointers.

Where Merrill could slot in on the roster is into the Dylan Windler and Cedi Osman slots. Windler, a 2019 first-round pick alongside Darius Garland Kevin Porter Jr., has battled injuries his entire career and likely will not be back next season. (He is currently on assignment with the Charge.)

Osman, meanwhile, has a non-guaranteed year left on his deal and could be traded or waived to make save some money. The former, though, feels more likely, even if it’s not a trade in the summer and instead extends into the season.

Merrill is older — he’s 26 and turns 27 in May. That’s older than both Wade and Stevens were when they popped and became players Cleveland wanted to keep around. And at 6’5”, 205-pounds, he’s more of a guard than a bigger wing shooter type that would really move the needle. Finding the right defensive spots for him on the floor could be a challenge.

But the logic is clear with Merrill. He’s got a skill the Cavs need and they’ve identified him as someone worth keeping in house. It’s a low-risk, logical contract.