The Cleveland Cavaliers and young wing Cedi Osman reportedly agreed to a four-year extension on Thursday, and that secures him as a nice piece for the team in coming years.
With the growth he showed in the 2018-19 season, which was his second in the NBA and with the Cleveland Cavaliers, it appears that wing Cedi Osman is one of the more promising players on Cleveland in coming years.
Even with last year being Osman’s de facto rookie season, considering Cleveland played him sparingly in the previous year when they made the NBA Finals with LeBron James and others, Osman did pretty well.
Though Cleveland clearly was getting their rebuild underway and Osman, along with then-rookie guard Collin Sexton, were tasked with creating a bunch for themselves and others with a barrage of injuries for much of the season, most notably to Cavs star big Kevin Love, Osman’s 2018-19 was encouraging.
It made plenty of the Wine and Gold faithful even bigger fans of the young forward, who grew quite a following even in his rookie season for his hustle and infectious smile.
The Cavaliers seemed to be fans of Cedi, too, as the team and Osman reportedly agreed to a four-year, $31 million contract extension, according to the New York Times‘ Marc Stein.
Cedi Osman has agreed to a four-year, $31 million contract extension with the Cavaliers, his agents Jeff Schwartz and Jordan Gertler of @excelsm tell @NYTSports
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) October 25, 2019
Osman, who would have been on track to be a restricted free agent next summer, will make $2.9 million this season (per Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus and h/t Spotrac). This deal will kick in next year, and is slated to run through the 2023-24 season.
A noteworthy detail as well with this contract extension is as was reported by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the deal has a non-guaranteed fourth year, and according to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, that fourth year will be for “$6.65 million.”
From there, Fedor also noted that the deal will be declining over its length, and for reference, Windhorst noted how the deal is officially set to be for “$30.8 million.”
Osman had 13.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 32.2 minutes per game in 2018-19, and that included 75 starts in 76 appearances (per Basketball Reference).
This is a good move for Cleveland, as it secures a nice piece for the foreseeable future, and alongside feasibly Love, impressive rookie guard Darius Garland, and Sexton, I’d expect Osman to gradually improve.
While Osman did struggle mightily last season on the defensive end, some of that was due to him often playing against bigger opponents in the post.
55% of his minutes in 2018-19 (per Basketball Reference) were at the 4 position, which was no easy task defensively against often much bigger players.
Plus, even with lateral quickness not being a strength of his, Osman does have good instincts as a help and weak side off-ball defender, does a pretty good job at getting through off-ball screens, and got better as last year progressed at contesting opposing shooters, and that’s a start.
In addition, considering the Cleveland Cavaliers had the league’s worst defensive rating last season and don’t really have much rim protection now, either, it wasn’t all on Osman.
Granted, maybe reserve big John Henson can qualify as some rim protection as 2019-20 progresses, but he hasn’t been healthy yet, and anyhow, my hope is Osman can improve defensively under the mostly-new coaching staff led by head coach John Beilein and especially with associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff leading the defense.
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Along with that, Osman, though he did shoot a respectable 34.8% from three-point land last year, still must be much more consistent from the perimeter when open to fully unlock his offensive game.
He shot three-of-six in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 2019-20 season opener at the Orlando Magic from deep (per ESPN), but it’s no secret that Osman is a streaky shooter, and that was the case in that game, where his misses did hurt the Cavs.
Anyway, if Osman can be more consistent from deep and have less ebs and flows throughout coming seasons, that would really help out others such as Garland, Sexton and feasibly rookie wing Kevin Porter Jr., and Osman’s cutting and passing feel, which are likely his two biggest strengths, would enable him to be even more of a crucial piece for Beilein in the near future.
Osman is a player that can get some for himself in the pick-and-roll, and with the way he can set up others well and at least initiate plenty of ball-swings after his drives throughout games, he can absolutely help the Cavs in a big way in coming years if they continue to give him a considerable minutes-share.
I still would think to see Beilein and company stay the course with Osman, the team’s current starter at small forward.
I’m sure if he can knock down triples at a near 40.6% clip, as he did in his four-year career at Belmont (per Sports Reference), rookie wing Dylan Windler could make a legitimate case to overtake Osman as Cleveland’s starting 3 in coming years, but with Osman’s playmaking and slashing ability, I’d like to still give him plenty of chances to further prove himself.
Plus, Windler and Osman could feed off one another really well on the floor together in some stretches, along with help each other off the floor, anyhow, as KJG’s Robbie DiPaola previously highlighted.
Let’s hope Windler is back soon for the Cavs from his reported stress reaction in his left leg, at any rate.
Again, though, this four-year extension for Osman secures a nice piece for Beilein and company, and it should allow the team to gradually develop Osman more and more with Cleveland primarily focused on player development in the next few seasons.
Cavs general manager Koby Altman and the front office get a thumbs up from me with this contract extension for Cedi, which should prove to be really team-friendly in today’s NBA.