Cleveland Cavaliers: Two key goals for Kevin Porter Jr. for 2020-21

2020-21 key goal #2 for KPJ for the Cleveland Cavaliers: Having an assist rate of 17.0 percent

Despite KPJ being a score-first player, his passing feel and ability to hit dump-offs to Nance, Love and later on in the season, Drummond, was really great to see, from my perspective.

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Furthermore, early on after J.B. Bickerstaff took over as Cavs head coach post-All-Star break and before the season’s suspension, Bickerstaff hit on how he wanted to see if KPJ could run some point as the season was set to move along.

With how Porter flashed quality feel for hitting said dump-offs to bigs and cutters, and is capable of hitting spray-outs to shooters, it’d be ideal for him to build on that more next season, and be one of the Cavs’ key playmakers when he’s in there.

Now I’m not suggesting we’ll see KPJ have 6.0-plus assists per game, but with the attention he’ll draw as a driver, it seems feasible for him to have near the 17.1 percent assist rate he had in his last 12 games active, per NBA.com.

So, the second key goal I have for Porter for next season is him having an assist rate of 17.0 percent.

As the season progressed, KPJ’s timing improved to a large degree as a playmaker in terms of his patience in letting cutters come free when operating in the pick-and-roll when helpers came to him, and I’d expect him to continue to build on that next year.

The same also goes for him in terms of finding passes to the strong and weak side corners to pieces such as Cedi Osman, Love/Nance and feasibly Dylan Windler, who did not play at all in 2019-20 due to complications with a stress reaction in his left leg.

Windler, who hit 40.6 percent of his career three-point attempts at Belmont over four years and is a good cutter/pull-up shooter, should mesh well with KPJ next year as the former gets his legs under him I’d imagine, too.

Anyhow, while I still believe the Cleveland Cavaliers seemingly have a strong chance of re-signing the expiring Matthew Dellavedova via team-friendly deal, and I’d expect him to still run things a bunch when on the floor, and Garland/Love/Nance will have their playmaking share, this goal for KPJ is not far-fetched.

It would indicate that KPJ is showing more progression as a playmaker/ball-mover, though, and with what he was showing pre-hiatus in that regard, I don’t see it as being unrealistic.

In addition, Porter had a solid 14.7 percent assist rate overall as a rookie, and while his turnover rate was a bit high at 14.0 percent, he did show improvement when playing more as the year progressed, and in his last 12 games, he only had a turnover rate of 10.2 percent.

In that span, he had 3.2 assists per game, for context, and next season, a similar/bit higher assist total on average would be just fine, if he can hit on his jumpers more, even more so.

Albeit I could see Windler, a solid ball-mover, though, capping KPJ’s assist total to near that 3.2 more, but again, with Porter’s scoring presence, that’d be quite alright.