Collin Sexton can’t find his offense consistently for Cavaliers
When the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Alabama point guard Collin Sexton with the eighth overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, the team was excited about the scoring ability the then-19-year-old would bring to the organization. But a current shooting slump seems to be derailing any growth the “Young Bull” has made this season.
It’s been an unconventional season for Collin Sexton, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ prized rookie. Quickly becoming the only asset the organization can cling to from the Kyrie Irving trade, a lot of unmentioned pressure has been placed on the rookie to perform well. Through half of an NBA season, it’s been a mixed-bag of showings from Sexton.
As of late, however, Sexton’s game has been all types of bad.
While it was understood that shooting consistently from mid and long-range would be something the Cavaliers would have to be patient with Sexton on, no one expected it to get this bad. During Cleveland’s nine-game losing streak, Sexton has shot 41-for-129 from the floor (per Basketball Reference).
That turns out to be a 31.8 percent shooting clip, which isn’t exactly ideal from a score-first guard. To make matters worse, Sexton has not hit a single three-pointer in four of the eight losses.
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The shooting struggles for the rookie had been linked to not having Tristan Thompson on the floor, as the veteran center had missed a few weeks of action with a foot injury. But Thompson’s been back for two games and it seems like Sexton still can’t get it together. He’s scored just 25 combined points in the Cavaliers’ last two contests.
In this author’s opinion, Sexton is trying to do too much with the basketball on a single possession.
Cavaliers legend and color-commentator Austin Carr discussed Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell‘s matured approach on offense during Friday’s broadcast. Carr brought up the point that Mitchell, who scored a game-high 18 points in the victory, let the game come to him and wasn’t fretting the fact that he hadn’t scored a ton of points early in the contest. While addressing the matter, Carr said that Sexton should try to adopt that mentality and will over time.
Carr hit the issue right on the head, as it’s obvious that the rookie is trying to create on offense but instead is making poor decisions due to his indecisiveness. Quite a few times per contest, Sexton will make a mid-shot pass that gets taken away by the defense or he’ll look to do it himself on the offensive end when better options are available.
It’s something Sexton will have to learn by realizing what his bad decisions lead to, that being breakaway scores and larger deficits. Much like the rest of the team, experience is an area the Cavaliers are lacking in. The only way to get more experience is to play more games and take their lumps while going through the struggles.