![Florida guard Xaivian Lee (1) drives against Iowa guard Tate Sage (24) during the second half of the NCAA March Madness second round at Benchmark international Arena in Tampa, FL on Friday, March 20, 2026. Florida lost 73-72 [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2573,h_1447/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kw0az07t4abdtpyrpc.jpg "Florida guard Xaivian Lee (1) drives against Iowa guard Tate Sage (24) during the second half of the NCAA March Madness second round at Benchmark international Arena in Tampa, FL on Friday, March 20, 2026. Florida lost 73-72 [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
Fair or unfair, Xaivian Lee had an unenviable task of filling the shoes of a legendary trio of guards who had just led Florida to a national title the year prior. The Princeton transfer was billed as a playmaker, and given Todd Golden’s previous track record in the transfer portal, Gator fans were hoping for big things from Lee.
As things played out, Lee had a better 2025/26 campaign than he is probably going to be remembered for in Gainesville, particularly as he did start to turn things around towards the end of the season, and he wasn’t really the issue in Florida’s loss to Iowa in the NCAA Tournament.
Lee went undrafted over the past two nights in the NBA Draft, but that doesn’t mean his story is over just yet, as he will be given a chance to see if he can stick with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Florida guard Xaivian Lee signs Exhibit 10 contract with ClevelandÂ
Lee has signed an Exhibit 10 contract with Cleveland after going undrafted. The contract is non-guaranteed, but it creates a pathway for Lee to participate with Cleveland in the upcoming Summer League and receive an invite to their training camp.Â
The realistic endgame goal for Lee heading into the 2026/27 NBA season is a roster spot on Cleveland’s G-League team and see if he can work his way up from there.
What was confounding with Lee during his lone season with the Gators, and what he is going to have to improve for him to have any shot at making it to a two-way contract in the NBA, was his three-point shooting. During his final year at Princeton, Lee shot 36% from three-point range. Â
But that tanked to 29% with the Gators, even though his two-point shooting percentage actually went up with Florida compared to Princeton. The caveat, however, is that Lee took half as many two-point shots in 2025/26 as in 2024/25, which also highlights the other massive improvement he will need.
For as flashy and creative as Lee could look at times, there were also times when he did a lot of flashy dribbling but never actually went anywhere. Rather than just drive by a guy, there were times it looked like he was putting together an AND-1 mixtape. The problem is that, after five seconds of flash, he was back at the spot he started.
If he can get it all to click and find his shooting stroke, and simplify when to be flashy, he has a toolset that can work at the next level. We’ll see this summer just how much run he gets in Summer League to see if he can stick around with Cleveland moving forward.
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