Cedi Osman and Alfonzo McKinnie should be nice rotational pieces for the Cleveland Cavaliers next season, and we’ll hit on a key 2020-21 goal for each.
According to reports on Wednesday from Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, a resumption of the 2019-20 NBA season appears to be on the horizon beginning in late July. Per those reports, though, of which you can view those details here, the league is expected to have 22 teams in action, and it’s evident this season is in all reality over for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Wine and Gold had the league’s second-worst record at 19-46 heading into the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Factoring in that, the Cavs certainly won’t be invited to ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World for the season resumption, given the league seems likely to ratify its’ return-to-play proposal on Thursday afternoon and the team’s overall standing, anyhow.
From this point forward, though, it’s understandable for Cavs fans to focus more toward next season.
As far as the outlook for key pieces, it would seem the Cavaliers know what they have in Collin Sexton as their go-to scorer. I’d then expect Kevin Love, still a very good inside-out threat, moving to a second option role, and I foresee Kevin Porter Jr. having an expanded role.
I would think we’ll see Andre Drummond, who is reportedly likely to pick up his $28.8 million player option for next year, to have his share of interior/rolling touches, too.
Here, though, we’ll take a look at a few players in Cedi Osman and Alfonzo McKinnie that should be nice rotational pieces for Cleveland next season, even while neither will likely be in a big on-ball role.
Osman and McKinnie should have carved-out roles for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and here, I’ll highlight a key 2020-21 goal for each.
Osman has had some good moments this season, but it seems inevitable that at some point next season, he’s going to be moved to more of a bench role.
Osman’s had 11.0 points per game, which has been okay, but Osman clearly does not have a high ceiling as a scorer, and given his lack of lateral quickness defensive limitations on-ball on the perimeter, he’s not the Cavs’ long-term answer as its’ starting 3.
That being said, I still see Osman as a piece that can be a more than capable bench contributor, and looking at next season, the goal I have for him relates to building on his efficient three-point shooting in 2019-20 often via spot-ups.
Osman’s key 2020-21 goal for Cleveland Cavaliers: Shooting 40.0 percent from downtown
While Osman does have nice secondary playmaking/ball-moving instincts, he’s not likely to have a significant on-ball creation role a ton moving forward.
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Even with that being the case, though, Osman still should be a quality cutter for Cleveland that can get high percentage looks off of movement, too, and more so, have catch-and-shoots from ball-swings.
Next season, because Cedi hit 38.3 percent from three-point range in 2019-20 on a three-point rate of 52.7 percent, it’d be great to see him build on that more, and hit 40.0 percent from deep. That’d be feasibly while playing less minutes, though.
I wouldn’t expect Osman to have nearly 4.9 three-point attempts again in 2020-21, but he has made considerable strides as a perimeter shooting threat, and even if he does shift more to a bench role next season, he could further progress as a floor-spacer.
Heading into his third year as a regular rotation player, that seems reasonable, and on less volume/a more tertiary role, in particular.
Again, though, given his defensive limitations and low ceiling in terms of a starting 3 sense, I wouldn’t expect Osman next season to play the 29.4 minutes per game he played in 2019-20.
So next up in terms of the other rotational piece for Cleveland I wanted to touch on, we’ll highlight McKinnie’s key 2020-21 goal.
McKinnie’s key 2020-21 goal for Cleveland Cavaliers: Averaging 1.6 steals per-36 minutes
It was really good to see McKinnie, who has been signed to two 10-day contracts throughout 2019-20 by the Cavs, be signed to a team-friendly deal by Cleveland in February. Even with upcoming years being non-guaranteed, I’d expect McKinnie to have a very realistic chance of sticking around.
McKinnie did miss an eight-game span post-All-Star break due to plantar fasciitis in his left foot and for some reason earlier on in the season, he was not getting rotational minutes.
In the 40 games McKinnie was active, however, he typically proved to be a solid reserve forward, particularly on the defensive end, proving to do a commendable job in minutes matched up against 3’s and 4’s mostly.
McKinnie, even while being an instinctive cutter/lob threat and impressive finisher at the rim, is not a player you expect to have big scoring spurts.
With the Cavs this season, he had 4.6 points per game in 14.8 minutes, and shot only 21.5 percent from three-point range, and has a career deep shooting hit rate of 30.5 percent, most of which was with the Golden State Warriors. Even with his on-ball contributions offensively being usually limited, the key goal for McKinnie for next season for me would again show he’s having a team defensive impact.
McKinnie has proven to be typically in the right spots as a rotator on the interior and to shooters for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that’s how he could again help out pieces such as Garland and/or Sexton, Porter/Osman and Dante Exum.
Dylan Windler, who has not played yet with Cleveland due to complications involving a stress reaction in his left leg, should contribute at the 2/3 spots next season, and I could see McKinnie help him defensively in some instances as well. Helping communicate through matchups off-ball and tagging rollers comes to mind regarding that.
Additionally, with his active hands as a stunter in passing lanes and proving to time up plays on the weak side, my key 2020-21 goal for McKinnie is having 1.6 steals per-36 minutes.
In 2019-20, which is safe to say is done for the Cavs, McKinnie has put up 1.4 steals per-36 minutes, per Basketball Reference.
Considering that, and with him seemingly becoming more comfortable in his role with the Cavaliers as a defensive forward/wing piece next season, I could very well see this goal being attainable for McKinnie.
It would also further prove his worth as a quality rotational forward option for Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and company.
If McKinnie plays similarly defensively next season in relation to being an impact defender/rotator as he did this year, I could again definitely see him meeting this key goal I have for him.
That’d also indicate the Cavs would be able to get out and run in transition when he’s in there, where McKinnie shines as a finisher.