More step backs could be sensible for Cavaliers’ Collin Sexton

Collin Sexton is already such a multi-faceted scorer for the Cleveland Cavaliers, but look out for him to use step backs more frequently.

This now-past season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, youngster Collin Sexton led the Wine and Gold with 20.8 points per game. Sexton followed up his rookie campaign in which he had a three-point shooting clip of 40.2 percent by hitting 38.0 percent of his triple attempts in 2019-20 and had a better true shooting rate of 56.0 percent as compared to 52.0 percent in 2018-19.

Sexton getting stronger enabled him to finish better on the interior, and him demonstrating the ability to change speeds in his second season allowed him to get cleaner looks off-the-bounce often, too. Heading into the 2020-21 season for Cleveland, to me it’s evident that Sexton is Cleveland’s primary scoring option, with Kevin Love better suited to shift to the second option.

The 21-year-old Sexton is such a gifted scorer and considering the strides he made as a bucket-getter in 2019-20, I don’t see it being outside the realm of possibility for him to put up 22.0-plus points per outing in year 3 with the Cavs.

Sexton is a tireless worker, and in what would turn out to be his last 32 games active leading into the novel coronavirus-induced hiatus and what would eventually be the last regular season games for the Cavs, a non-Orlando team, Sexton was lighting it up.

In that stretch, which was the 2020 portion of Cleveland’s season, Sexton averaged 23.6 points per outing on 49.2 percent shooting and hit 44.9 percent of his 4.9 three-point attempts per game.

In his second season, it was great to see Sexton not hesitating and just letting open catch-and-shoot/spot-up three-point attempts fly, and while Sexton still took his share of mid-range pull-up attempts, those were much more in-rhythm and were much less forced.

Again, and off-the-bounce, Sexton showing the feel for changing speeds really helped him in the scoring sense. Along with that, on the season, Sexton hit 46.8 percent of his pull-ups, which were the third-most shot type attempts he had, per NBA.com’s shooting data.

In his first season, he still hit a healthy 44.3 percent of his pull-ups, but often, those came following Sexton hesitating after passing up open triples off-the-catch, but last season, that wasn’t the case.

In the 2020-21 campaign, though, while Sexton will have his share of driving attempts, of which he improved on in relation to efficiency last season, and pull-ups and catch-and-shoots will be key, I could see more step backs from Collin.

More step backs next season for the Cleveland Cavaliers could pay off for Sexton.

With Sexton’s explosiveness, and with him being an ever-improving pull-up shooter and being a relentless driver/foul drawer, I could see more step backs being sensible for him. Sexton hit 42.9 percent of his 49 step back attempts last season, which was a pretty respectable clip.

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With the space Sexton can generate with the constant threat of his speed/quickness and with him being a quality pull-up/floater threat, I’d imagine that some more step back volume from Sexton could work well for him and lead to quality looks, too, though.

Those could feasibly come in both settled offense and in secondary transition, also.

I can’t exactly pinpoint a suggested number of step back attempts for Sexton for 2020-21, but more volume there would only aid him in getting cleaner looks for his floaters if defenders start to anticipate step backs more. More drives to the rim for Sexton could eventually open throughout games, coupled with that, too.

So while I see Darius Garland and Dylan Windler, who is reportedly progressing well in relation to his rehab involving a stress reaction in his left leg that kept him out of 2019-20, to be key step back threats for Cleveland, Sexton should be one, too.

Hopefully we see more step backs from the Young Bull in 2020-21, which would seem to be sensible for him and create high percentage looks.

While it’d be nice to see Sexton should continued improvement in terms of passing feel and team defensive instincts next season, more willingness to use counter moves as a scorer would be really meaningful to me, too.

More step back attempts for Sexton I could see realistically leading to a higher clip on those looks as well. Of course, I know the pull-up and floater attempts would still be more of a bread and butter type for Collin.

But again, some more step back frequency could make him even more difficult to account for game-to-game.