Cleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton has gotten much better as his rookie year has progressed, and his teammate and head coach believe Sexton should be named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team.
As the season has progressed, Cleveland Cavaliers rookie Collin Sexton has shown that he belongs, and has a bright future in the NBA. As we’ve discussed, it hasn’t been smooth sailing for him, but he’s gotten better, and is riding a scorching scoring stretch for the past two months, really.
On the season, Sexton has averaged 16.4 points on 47.8 percent effective field goal shooting, to go with 3.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game, per NBA.com. He’s also surprised everybody with his three-point shooting accuracy, as he’s knocked in 41.4 percent of his triples in his first year, thanks to him reportedly getting boatloads of perimeter shooting work in throughout the year.
With the way Sexton has greatly improved and due to the “Young Bull” making the best out of a rough set of circumstances in his first year, Cleveland head coach Larry Drew believes Sexton should be a member of the NBA All-Rookie First Team, (h/t the Cleveland Cavaliers).
Sexton has played in all 76 games for the Cavs this year, and started in 66 of them. Over that period, he’s come a long way.
Previous head coach Tyronn Lue was reportedly fired after just six games. That couldn’t have been the easiest thing for a rookie point guard to deal with to begin his NBA career.
Then there were reports early in the season of teammates questioning if Sexton even knows ‘how to play.'”
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That being said, during the first half of the year, Sexton was still showing plenty of scoring flashes, and while his individual defensive and passing metrics haven’t been good throughout the year, with his reported work ethic, he can (and I believe will) improve in those areas in the next few years.
Let’s not dismiss how much Cleveland’s rotation has changed this season, either, with several mid-season trades, too, and the fact that Kevin Love, the team’s best player and five-time All-Star (whose presence would’ve greatly helped Sexton, as it has recently) has only been active in 21 of the team’s 76 games (per NBA.com).
In the last two months, and especially since the All-Star break (as we’ve mentioned), Sexton’s been putting it all together as a scorer, though, and while the assist numbers haven’t been great, he’s making much better decisions and is initiating more ball swings than he did earlier in the year.
Furthermore, as our own Josh Friedman emphasized going into yesterday, “he’s shooting 50.8 percent over the past 10 games” from three-point land (per NBA.com), and that’s while taking 6.3 per game.
Sexton’s hot shooting from the perimeter has been steamy for much more than that stretch, though, and few have been knocking threes down like the rookie has around the league since early February (h/t the Cleveland Cavaliers).
Love stressed how much Sexton has grown as a player over the course of this year, and also believes his teammate should be a member of the NBA All-Rookie First Team, (again, h/t the Cleveland Cavaliers).
Love and Drew have a legitimate case here, considering the way Sexton has grown throughout the year as a first-year primary ball-handler. Sexton is tied for third in qualified rookie scoring, per Basketball Reference.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young has picked it up in a huge way over the last two few months, too, like Sexton.
On the season, Young has averaged 18.9 points (second among qualified rookies) on 48.4 effective field goal shooting, to go with an outstanding 7.9 assists (first among qualified rookies), and 3.6 rebounds per game, per NBA.com.
The Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic, who leads all qualified rookies in scoring with 21.1 points per game on 49.9 percent field goal shooting and is second in assists with 5.9 per game, is likely the Rookie of the Year.
Along with that, the Phoenix Suns’ Deandre Ayton has averaged 16.3 points per game (on 58.4 percent effective field goal shooting), and has averaged 10.2 rebounds per night, per Basketball Reference, is on first squad as well.
As a side note, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has had a really nice rookie season, too, but has not had nearly the same workload as these other two point guards, Sexton and Young, have had, considering Gilgeous-Alexander is on the Los Angeles Clippers, who are postseason bound.
Lastly, in the case with Young and Sexton, though, as The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (subscription required) hit on, “a player’s position on the court is not taken into account,” so with that information, Sexton should definitely be on the All-Rookie First Team.
A case would realistically be made for either Sexton or Young warranting first team rookie recognition, and we’ll see what happens. It was cool that Drew and Love backed the Cleveland Cavaliers’ youngster, either way.