Kevin Porter Jr. is one of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ most promising players, and we’ll hit on a few ways he should be used to maximize his play in 2020-21.
According to reports on Thursday, it was announced that the 2019-20 season was officially over for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had been one of the league’s worst teams. As was expected, the NBA’s Board of Governors approved the league’s 22-team format for a season resumption on Thursday, and the Cavs were not a squad then to be involved.
Along with that, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBPA’s player representatives approved the league’s 22-team format on Friday, meaning that NBA basketball is set to return on July 31.
The 22 teams invited to Orlando to finish the season were the 16 current playoff teams as well as six teams from the Eastern and Western Conference who were on the bubble in the New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards.
This decision also effectively ended the season of the eight remaining teams, including the Cavaliers, as was mentioned. With the 2019-20 season now over, we can look at the future and see how the young players will handle this extended break. The most intriguing prospect to look at is said by many to be Kevin Porter Jr., and it will be interesting to see how much of a leap he takes next season.
KPJ had an exciting season for the Cavaliers this past campaign. As the season went on, his play improved and you could see as to why he looked to have been a steal.
Considering that, something to look forward to will be seeing how the Cleveland Cavaliers utilize KPJ next season and here, we’ll look at a few ways they could maximize his play in 2020-21.
We’ll get started with highlighting one of those ways now.
The first way the Cleveland Cavaliers could maximize KPJ next season: More isolation attempts
Throughout the season, KPJ had shown an impressive handle that led to head coach J.B. Bickerstaff considering playing him at point guard at times, or was said to be the case before the season’s novel coronavirus-induced hiatus and soon after Bickerstaff took over as Cavs head coach.
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This handle that he possesses will help to improve his game and keep defenders honest against him. Combining that with his athleticism, if KPJ could add strength, his isolation game could take massive strides and having a better isolation game would help to improve the other facets of his play.
Looking at statistics, KPJ ran an iso play 13.6 percent of the time, which resulted in a score 35.5 percent of the time and a shooting foul 9.2 percent of the time, according to Synergy Sports. KPJ’s driving and finishing abilities will also help his iso abilities.
On a particularly impressive note, though, this past season, KPJ shot 68.7 percent in the restricted area, per NBA.com’s shooting data, which was a real bright spot with him only being a rookie perimeter player.
KPJ’s iso play from this past season is just the beginning.
Looking at it, you can see where the James Harden comparisons come from and with the proper training, we could see it reach new heights over the course of the next few years.
There are tons of ways the Cavs could look to improve his isolation game for next season, including doing something that I will discuss next.
The second way the Cleveland Cavaliers could maximize KPJ next season: Surrounding him with better shooters
As it stands currently, it is unknown if KPJ will start or come off the bench but, the Cleveland Cavaliers can do well with adding more shooting.
Assuming that he comes off the bench, it looks like the other three-to-four players who could come off the bench with him includes players such as whoever the Cavaliers draft, depending on where they pick and others.
Also mixed in seems likely to be a combination of Dante Exum, Larry Nance Jr., Dylan Windler, Alfonzo McKinnie, and, depending on if they are re-signed, Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova. Granted, Thompson seems unlikely to be back.
Looking at that list of players, the only knockdown shooter from that list is Dylan Windler, who did not play last season due to complications involving a stress reaction in his left leg.
Windler did shoot 42.9 percent from three-point land in his senior season at Belmont, though, per Sports Reference, and as I previously emphasized, you saw how much better KPJ played alongside good shooters.
Looking at how they could go about adding more shooters, prospects such as TCU’s Desmond Bane, Gonzaga’s Killian Tillie, Louisville’s Jordan Nwora, and Minnesota’s Daniel Oturu are all players with nice three-point shots who the Cavaliers could add with a late first or early second-round pick in this year’s NBA Draft. That’d be feasible it seems if the Cavs were able to trade seemingly a combination of future second-round draft picks and/or cash considerations.
Looking at upcoming free agency, guys such as Alex Len, Frank Kaminsky, and Juan Hernangómez are all stretch bigs that the Cavaliers could look to add by potentially using their near-$9 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception.
Making some of these moves could give the Cavs a nice and effective five-man lineup for the bench, surrounding KPJ often with four other shooters and allowing him to orchestrate the offense and continue to get better as a player.
The third way the Cleveland Cavaliers could maximize KPJ next season: Play him some at PG
As was alluded to, Bickerstaff talked about his desire to experiment in the Cavs’ remaining games early on after he took over as head coach, and that again, included utilizing KPJ some at point guard. This desire seemed to come from the handling ability that Porter had shown throughout the season, as stated before.
This plan never came to be, as the NBA season again would be suspended due to COVID-19 and a concussion that KPJ sustained had kept him sidelined for the Cavaliers’ last three games of the season.
Looking at the roster, depending on how the 2020 NBA Draft goes, the Cleveland Cavaliers could be left with just two point guards on the team with Darius Garland and Exum, as Dellavedova is set to be a free agent. With Exum’s injury history, which has most notably included shoulder and knee issues, it would be wise for the Cavs to look to add another point guard or to give KPJ some meaningful minutes there.
Through the last six or so games, it seemed as if KPJ was making some strides as a passer. Looking at his last five games, excluding the game where he left early due to injury against the Boston Celtics, he averaged 4.2 assists per game compared to just 1.8 turnovers per game.
In addition, as KJG’s Dan Gilinsky highlighted recently, in his last 12 games, KPJ had a 17.1 percent assist rate, which ranked fourth behind Dellavedova, Garland, and Collin Sexton in that stretch, per NBA.com.
Looking at the Cavs’ roster, they have quality dump off options for KPJ in Andre Drummond, assuming he picks up his $28.8 million player option, which is reportedly likely, along with Nance, who both could give Porter easy assists.
Porter also has some shooters to use at his disposal in players such as Windler, Kevin Love, Cedi Osman, Collin Sexton and Garland, who could all work off-ball and maneuver around screens for KPJ to hit for open triples.
All in all, KPJ at point guard could become a real thing next season and with improvements to roster construction as well as some creativity from Bickerstaff, we could see some serious improvements from Porter in the near future.