Cleveland Cavaliers: The top three driving threats in 2019-20

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Cleveland Cavaliers wing Cedi Osman looks to attack. (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images) /

#3: Cedi Osman

Coming into this season, young Cleveland wing Cedi Osman is one of the team’s key pieces, as KJG contributors have emphasized.

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Osman took major strides last year on the offensive end, which was his first year consistently playing meaningful, let alone starting minutes, as he only played 11.0 minutes per game in his rookie year in the 2017-18 season and had only 61 appearances, as compared to 2018-19, where Osman appeared in 76 games and had a workload of 32.2 minutes per contest (per Basketball Reference).

In Beilein’s system, Osman should benefit in a big way with the emphasis on constant motion, and to me, he projects as one of Cleveland’s best drivers this year/coming years.

Though Osman shot a pretty average 60.3% 0-3 feet from the rim last year, he seemed to get better as a finisher as last year progressed as a finisher near the rim, and grew more accustomed to using the rim to protect the ball from primary defenders when driving/cutting baseline.

Piggybacking off what was mentioned earlier involving the likely better spacing when Osman’s on the floor with Love, I’d expect Osman’s finishing to be better this year, and it’d be fair to argue Porter here over Cedi, but to me, Osman’s passing ability and vision at this point is considerably better than Porter’s (though Porter did show flashes of good drive-and-kick ability in his one-year stint at USC), and that’s primarily why I believe Osman will be the better driving threat, at least this season, as Porter is only a 19-year-old rookie.

Osman, though the 2.6 assists per game last year don’t necessarily show it, often made quality scoring-level passes both inside to bigs such as Larry Nance Jr., Tristan Thompson (when he was healthier) and also Osman displayed nice chemistry with Ante Zizic in spurts, leading to plenty of easy looks for Zizic.

This season, with Love hopefully healthier, too, along with the likes of Garland, a very gifted deep shooter, Collin Sexton (a 40.2% three-point shooter in his rookie year), to go with dangerous shooters in Porter himself, feasibly Windler (when he’s back from a reported left tibial stress reaction), and/or Matthew Dellavedova and Jordan Clarkson in some stretches on the floor with him as catch-and-shoot threats, Osman should be one of the Cavs’ best drive-and-kick distributors next year and beyond.

He has shown advanced passing feel and ability to fire passes to the weak and strong side corners, and this year with more capable shooters, his playmaking splits should increase.

In addition, with the way that Beilein’s offense will seemingly put an emphasis on hitting cutters and rollers at times, Osman should continue to rack up assists when throwing lobs to the likes of Nance, Thompson, Zizic and I’d think on occasion John Henson as well, specifically when operating out of the pick-and-roll, when he should be able to get downhill and draw shot blockers over.

I’d imagine the 24-year-old Osman should become a more efficient player in the 2019-20 season, and further establish himself as one of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ best slashers and driving passers this year, his third in the NBA (all with Cleveland).