Complaints re the Cavs containment

[JonFromVA]

Even if i were to agree Sexton was no better his rookie season which would be a lie since he came into the league not known for his shooting yet continued to silence the critics . Neither of dg and esp Okoro have a silencer gene

Few players are wired the way Collin is, but that doesn't mean they won't continue to work on their game and improve.

ok how much time and $ is it worth for this org to continue down this path though? I mean it is one thing to miss on drafted players it's another to have all your confidence based on hope that not just a few things will improve in time but that a laundry list will...
There is nothing more to say each one if these players needs to step up in different ways a lot faster than they are or they are going to get shopped or dumped the only question is does this org have the patience you seem to have or are they growing tired of the struggle as I am.

If a team isn't up to rebuilding through the draft in the one and done era, they should trade their picks for vets and be mediocre.

Giving these guys 2 seasons only brings them up to where the league was back when a good college player would enter the league after his Junior year, and not all of them came on like gang-busters either.

Our own Mark Price was 22 when he entered the league and disappointed the Cavs so much, they felt they had to draft Kevin Johnson. Mark turned that all around his 2nd season and made KJ tradeable by averaging ... oh go figure ... 16 & 6 like ... guess who?

[Stillwater]

Few players are wired the way Collin is, but that doesn't mean they won't continue to work on their game and improve.

ok how much time and $ is it worth for this org to continue down this path though? I mean it is one thing to miss on drafted players it's another to have all your confidence based on hope that not just a few things will improve in time but that a laundry list will...
There is nothing more to say each one if these players needs to step up in different ways a lot faster than they are or they are going to get shopped or dumped the only question is does this org have the patience you seem to have or are they growing tired of the struggle as I am.

If a team isn't up to rebuilding through the draft in the one and done era, they should trade their picks for vets and be mediocre.

Giving these guys 2 seasons only brings them up to where the league was back when a good college player would enter the league after his Junior year, and not all of them came on like gang-busters either.

Our own Mark Price was 22 when he entered the league and disappointed the Cavs so much, they felt they had to draft Kevin Johnson. Mark turned that all around his 2nd season and made KJ tradeable by averaging ... oh go figure ... 16 & 6 like ... guess who?

There is no question Okoro has potential but his shooting has been atrocious and down right disgusting and he should NOT be starting at this point it is hurting the rest of the players who need development like Sexton and Garland and Wade etc.
But they will keep it going because they have no other option to be all in on him going 5th overall just like they were the other 2.
I guess the point being missed here is in the 3rd year of a rebuild if you are going to pick 1 way players you better be getting more offense out of other starters to make up for it if in fact you are going to run that rook into the ground as a starter.
There is no way Sexland survives as a result of Okoro being over used imo

[JonFromVA]

ok how much time and $ is it worth for this org to continue down this path though? I mean it is one thing to miss on drafted players it's another to have all your confidence based on hope that not just a few things will improve in time but that a laundry list will...
There is nothing more to say each one if these players needs to step up in different ways a lot faster than they are or they are going to get shopped or dumped the only question is does this org have the patience you seem to have or are they growing tired of the struggle as I am.

If a team isn't up to rebuilding through the draft in the one and done era, they should trade their picks for vets and be mediocre.

Giving these guys 2 seasons only brings them up to where the league was back when a good college player would enter the league after his Junior year, and not all of them came on like gang-busters either.

Our own Mark Price was 22 when he entered the league and disappointed the Cavs so much, they felt they had to draft Kevin Johnson. Mark turned that all around his 2nd season and made KJ tradeable by averaging ... oh go figure ... 16 & 6 like ... guess who?

There is no question Okoro has potential but his shooting has been atrocious and down right disgusting and he should NOT be starting at this point it is hurting the rest of the players who need development like Sexton and Garland and Wade etc.
But they will keep it going because they have no other option to be all in on him going 5th overall just like they were the other 2.
I guess the point being missed here is in the 3rd year of a rebuild if you are going to pick 1 way players you better be getting more offense out of other starters to make up for it if in fact you are going to run that rook into the ground as a starter.
There is no way Sexland survives as a result of Okoro being over used imo

Interesting fact I heard recently and can easily be verified, and that's that Isaac's shooting numbers at home .vs. on the road are night and day. Believe it or not, but his 3pt% is 39.1% at home. His FT% is even significantly better at home, and his TS% is downright respectable at 55.5%.

And lo and behold the Cavs are a much better team at home even in a season where home court hasn't made much of a difference for most teams.

So, while I've only plucked out a couple of the variables, it does suggest that if Okoro simply adjusts better to playing on the road (shoot-around before games in arenas he's never played in might help!?!?) it could give the team a big lift.

And Isaac isn't the only player who's shooting the 3-ball poorly on the road. Wade, Sexton, and Osman and perhaps others I didn't check fall in that category as well. As a team we shoot 37.5% on 3pters at home, and 30% on the road.

There will be pressure to do something. To judge, to blame, to break things up, to fire Altman or JBB ... but we need to stay the course and as jbk1234 says let Altman get what's coming to him (which is hopefully credit for a job well done).

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/o/okorois01/splits/2021

[jbk1234]

Yeah Sexton was not the worst starter as a rookie by any measure but whatever helps your argument right lol
DG got a pass for his injuries , Okoro I guess gets one for having to play during a pandemic where they cant even coach them up besides in game etc.
I am not interested in the long delayed process of holding back the system and plays that worked early in the season anymore in the name of tanking or overplaying and calling it developing of one rookie whos main need is too be putting up 2000 shots a day in the gym over anything else.

How about this measure?

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2019/page/13

Collin was rated 511th out of 513 players by the "measure" called "RPM".

I'm sure I can find more, if you don't feel that gets my point across and agree to pay me $500 in advance for wasting my time.

what was your buddies RPM last season?
I get what you are saying but individual stats say Sexton was nowhere near that bad of a player. Nothing about his game suggested anything was close to as disappointing as DG or Okoro but playing with disgruntled vets in a season after a long playoff run also did not help Sexton on the team oriented stat game like RPM or any other rating that always factors in more than the player themselves

His first year and a half he was shooting on meh efficiency. He was just taking a lot of shots. The only individual stat that impressed was PPG. Everything else about his individual stat line was unremarkable. He improved his efficiency in the second half of last season and first third of this season before coming back down.

This year he's averaging 18.4 FGA per game, over 16.7 his second year, and 14.7 FGA per game his rookie year. A lot of his scoring improvement has been him just taking more shots. That's fine as the team's leading scorer, but his PPG isn't out of this world for a guy taking that many shots. His usage is even higher than his FGAs suggest because he also takes almost 6 FTs per game. You have to squint pretty hard to see improvement in any other area of his stat-line game. His assist per game are up to 4.2 over 3.0. That gets him up to no longer embarrassing in terms of assists.

I am growing more concerned about where his defense is at in his third year. Most nights Okoro draws the toughest assignments and Garland is over the opposing team's PG. He's no longer the guy who is constantly put in those high PNRs. That's Garland.

He doesn't always close out on shooters, and those occasions where he is tasked with defending the high PNR, poor job doesn't really cover it. He just gives up on the play. He at least needs to do what IT did in Boston where he's starting his rotation over to shooters so that whoever has the corner shooter can roll towards the basket.

With Drummond gone and Love out on most nights, he absolutely needs to make more of an effort to secure the defensive rebound, yet he's still leaking out and trying to run early. Sexton is a guy who could, and should, easily add a rebound or two to his stat line.

The box the Cavs currently find themselves in is that Garland and Sexton need each other offensively, but defensively, they're too limited to start together. I would've traded for Lonzo because he's the exact type of player Sexton needs to start next to if he's going to start on even a decent team. If it didn't work next to Lonzo, it just wasn't going to work. Now that opportunity is gone with Zo being a RFA.

I'm not really sure what the answer is here but I don't think a 19-year old kid is going to come in and get the Cavs out of this box in his rookie season. That would be great, but the odds are long. I'd let Sexton play out his 4th year on a rookie contract and see how it goes. I don't have an issue with matching an offer sheet that's an overpay. You have four years to evaluate a young guy's development and this is precisely the type of situation where it makes it sense to use all four years to evaluate a player.

[Stillwater]

Ive said it before but I think Sexton has had the toughest time having to play his 2nd and 3rd seasons with **** rookies starting with him each of those 2 seasons just like vets complained about him starting his rookie season. Alot of the complaints about Sexton are warranted if you only look at the numbers and do not attribute some of it to who the f he is trying to play with. In a situation where he is playing with vets at this point in his career Sexton would have a much better stat line.
DG never gets the defensive attn that Sexton gets when they are both out there, and he got killed when Sexton was out with the groin when they did give DG the Sexton attn.
I just think so much of this would go away fairly easily if one of the starters was actually a true pg or one of them was actually a true off ball guard. As is we will always see this your turn my turn bs

[jbk1234]

Ive said it before but I think Sexton has had the toughest time having to play his 2nd and 3rd seasons with **** rookies starting with him each of those 2 seasons just like vets complained about him starting his rookie season. Alot of the complaints about Sexton are warranted if you only look at the numbers and do not attribute some of it to who the f he is trying to play with. In a situation where he is playing with vets at this point in his career Sexton would have a much better stat line.
DG never gets the defensive attn that Sexton gets when they are both out there, and he got killed when Sexton was out with the groin when they did give DG the Sexton attn.
I just think so much of this would go away fairly easily if one of the starters was actually a true pg or one of them was actually a true off ball guard. As is we will always see this your turn my turn bs

So a few things: Garland is playing with Okoro as well. So if Okoro not being NBA ready on offense is an excuse for Sexton, it's also an excuse for Garland. But yes, unless or until the Cavs decide that they're better off starting vets and bringing in rookies off the bench, all the players, not just Sexton, are going to have to deal with the growing pains of playing rookies. In order to get to that point the Cavs are going to have to be healthier, and frankly, sign some better vets than they currently have on the roster. I'm not seeing Cedi, Delly, or even Prince, as producing the type of on the court improvement that would help Sexton. I don't think you can bank on Love's health going forward.

But it is worth being cleared-eyed in regards to what you're saying, if Sexton needs to play alongside better players to play better, then how good is he really? More importantly, if he's playing alongside better players, are those players going to be okay with being used as decoys, because that's not at all how it worked out with Love. Those guys are going to want touches and shots. They're not going to want to watch Sexton dribble ten seconds off the shot clock in an ISO setting.

Finally, the biggest reason Sexton has become easier to defend, is that he makes himself easier to defend by not adjusting to how he's being defended. Every team in the NBA knows his strong preference is to put the ball on the floor and get to the rim. You get scouted and teams play your tendencies. Even if you remove passing from the equation, and you make yourself easier to defend when you do so, then you can still shoot from 3, or employ the pull-up mid range shot. Sexton has largely abandoned the latter since his rookie season.

There are areas where Sexton can improve that don't require better players around him, his defense, his handle has become too loose against good defenders, his rebounding, etc. That's on him and a lot of it has to do with effort and/or what parts of his game he's prioritizing.

[Stillwater]

With few consistently commanding defenses attention life has been hard on Sexton and so improvement as a scorer is necessary for both DG and Okoro to see what they have with Sexton as a member of a functioning core as opposed to operating behind the 8 ball and struggling with his own limitations on display constantly. None of these players are a true first option but in no way whatsoever do I think you are seeing the full potential of any of them as a result of each others shortcomings. Team matters. Curry is never going to be the same successful player without Klay imo just like Kyrie couldnt win anything without the GOAT.
I just think showing the ability to score well enough to take defensive attn off teammates has to happen from anyone who is starting in the NBA