Cal Sports Report

Cavs GM Mike Gansey Compliments Jaylon Tyson, Mark Madsen

Ex-Cal star Tyson had a bad back during his workout for the Cavaliers but still had "by far" the best workout of any player the Cavs brought in

Jake Curtis

Cavs GM Mike Gansey
Cavs GM Mike Gansey /
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Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Mike Gansey spoke to the Cleveland media on Wednesday about the Cavs’ first-round draft pick, Cal guard/forward Jaylon Tyson, and Cal coach Mark Madsen.

It’s worthwhile to listen to his entire press conference, but here are the highlights:

--- Gansey made of point of complimenting Madsen several times, saying the Bears “overachieved” this past season. “I think Mark is one of the more underrated and better coaches in college.”

--- The Cavs like the versatility of Tyson, who had been a forward but ended up being the Bears chief ballhandler and playmaker. “He fits a lot of different roles,” Gansey said. “He can play one, two, three. He fills a lot of gaps, checks a lot of boxes we wanted to have.”

--- The Cavaliers don’t expect Tyson to be a major contributor in his first year. “We feel like he can contribute, maybe not first year, but at some point with us.”

---Tyson needs to learn to play off the ball – something he did not do at Cal – and must improve defensively and shoot better.  "He had to do everything for Cal,” said Gansey, who called Tyson “average to above average defensively.”

---Tyson almost skipped his workout with the Cavaliers because he had a bad back. “At first I don’t think he was actually going to go [to the Cavs’ workout] because he had a really bad back, like he pulled a spasm in his back a couple workouts ago, and this was going to be his last workout, and he said the last two or three, he couldn’t move, and when the workout started he couldn’t move. Steve Spiro, our trainer, was like, ‘Are you sure you want to go?’ And he was like, ‘No, I want to go, I want go.’  Obviously his mental toughness and his fight to play through things obviously showed, but he just did everything in that workout. He was getting every rebound, he was making every play, he was making shots, he was defending. It was a high-level workout of guys, couple guys who got drafted tonight [in the first round], so he just really stood out. It was by far the best workout of any guy we had in here.”

Tyson's reaction to being the 20th overall pick in the first round Wednesday:

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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