Cavaliers’ Anthony Bennett open to playing in D-League

Cleveland Cavaliers rookie forward Anthony Bennett is on pace to have one of, if not the, worst seasons in NBA history for a lottery pick.

Bennett, the #1 overall pick of this summer’s draft, is averaging just 2.4 points and 2.2 rebounds in 10.4 minutes per game. In 31 games, he’s shooting 26.9% from the field, 14.3% from beyond the arc and 59.1% from the charity stripe.

Obviously Bennett isn’t ready to compete at the NBA level and one option the Cavaliers could have is sending Bennett to the NBA’s Developmental League. You don’t normally see players selected as highly as Bennett there (although current Oklahoma City Thunder center Hasheem Thabeet, who was the second overall pick of the 2009 draft by the Memphis Grizzlies, spent time there), but he is open to the idea.

“It’s something I’d think about, for sure,” Bennett told Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. “It’s not a bad thing, especially going down there, hopefully playing a lot, going out there, building my confidence.”

Bennett believes he just needs to keep working hard and improvement will come.

“It’s a learning process, and all I can do is just work hard, you know?” Bennett said. “I’m just patient. I missed the whole summer due to the surgery, so I’m kind of behind in everything, trying to catch up on everything. Like I said before, the only thing I can really do is work hard. It doesn’t show much in the games, but in practice I’ve been going hard. My conditioning is a lot better. I lost weight and everything. So it’s coming along slowly.”

The Cavaliers will get back to work Wednesday night when they travel to Portland to take on the Trail Blazers.