Cavs: 3 keys to a successful rookie season for Kevin Porter Jr.

#3: Show he can eventually become a plus defender

Let’s be clear here.

The Cleveland Cavaliers, even though injuries didn’t help and caused players such as Osman to play out of position often last year, had the worst defensive rating in the history of the league since that metric was recorded by Basketball Reference.

Furthermore, even though Cleveland looks to be a team that should be improved in regards to shooting/spacing next year and should be more fun to watch, on the minus side, with them playing a bunch of young players big minutes, the defense is almost certainly going to be one of the league’s worst in 2019-20, especially if could-be restricted free agent David Nwaba does not return.

That seems to be a fair possibility, because according to the previously-mentioned Davies, Nwaba is not likely to play next season on just the qualifying offer, and if he does eventually not return, Cleveland’s defense, which will suffer mightily with pieces such as Darius Garland and Sexton likely being big liabilities, will be in even worse shape.

That being said, Porter, though he may not project as a plus defender early on, has high potential as a defender on the perimeter, and when fully engaged on that end at USC, showed he could guard primary and secondary ball-handlers pretty well.

Additionally, Porter averaged 7.2 rebounds and 1.5 steals per 40 minutes.

If Porter can be a willing rotator on the weak side and be disciplined in closing out to shooters and navigating through off-ball screens, that’ll be promising for his near future outlook defensively, because the physical tools are clearly there.

Porter had a solid defensive rebounding rate of 15.0%, and with his coast-to-coast ability as a ball-handler, that could enable Cleveland to get some easy transition baskets; it’ll be up to Porter to want to seek out contact in those situations, though (he was only 24-of-46 from the free throw line all year), along with making the right extra pass if that’s available to trailers such as Love, Windler and Osman.

Unless otherwise referenced, statistics for this article were gathered from Sports Reference’s college basketball statistics.