Bleacher Report has solid case with Larry Nance Jr. as Cavs MVP, but it’s tough to not go Collin Sexton

Bleacher Report recently listed Larry Nance Jr. as the MVP for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019-20.

I can’t say I’d really strongly disagree with Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes, who recently listed Larry Nance Jr. as the Cleveland Cavaliers MVP for the 2019-20 season. Cleveland’s campaign is obviously done in terms of not having any more games for this now-past season, and they were not a team invited to Orlando.

Quickly glancing back at Nance’s campaign, I was more than satisfied with his play for the most part, and in the 2020 portion of the schedule, in particular. Nance followed up his 2018-19 progression by again having career-highs in points per game and three-point shooting percentage at 10.1 and 35.2 percent.

He also had 7.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.0 steals per contest in 26.3 minutes per game, and Nance’s improved ball handling helped him in the scoring sense. Also, looking at next season, he should be even more capable as a secondary playmaker because of that better handle.

In terms of the crucial part of Hughes’ case for Nance as Cleveland’s 2019-20 MVP, here was the gyst, anyhow, and again, he does make a solid case.

"“Kevin Love has a case here, but Larry Nance Jr. made a larger statistical impact on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ limited success this season. FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR has him atop Cleveland’s leaderboard with 2.9 wins above replacement, and the 27-year-old narrowly edges out Love in Basketball Reference’s win-share calculation despite having played 308 fewer minutes than the Cavs’ biggest name.”"

Hughes then emphasized, per Cleaning The Glass, how Nance led the Cavaliers in “on-off differential among players who logged at least 1,000 minutes on the year.”

The growth Nance has shown as a player that gives the Cavs quite a spark off the bench makes a difference, and going forward, it was encouraging to see post-All-Star break Nance actually show some capability to play the 3 at times. J.B. Bickerstaff utilized that in his stint after taking over the head coaching reigns, and I think we should see that more next season, based on matchups.

Nonetheless, while there’s few that are bigger fans of Nance than me, for the Cleveland Cavaliers 2019-20 MVP, I’d have to go with Collin Sexton.

To reiterate, Hughes made a solid case for Nance, and though I clearly understand you’d like to see more growth especially on the defensive end and more passing willingness, the constant pressure Collin Sexton put on opposing defenses sold me for this.

Sexton led the Cavs in scoring with 20.8 points per outing, and while Kevin Love could be in the running as well, the frustration he showed and more inconsistency earlier on I don’t think slotted him over Sexton, personally.

Sexton not missing a game in his first two seasons in the NBA shouldn’t be glossed over, either, and while his defensive rating of 117.0 was a significant negative against him, Sexton often having to defend bigger 2’s and often being on the floor with Darius Garland defensively didn’t aid his matchups. That said, Sexton did show growth in terms of on-ball defense and deterring drivers and held his own much more than in year one in deterring pull-ups.

It was nice that Sexton had 65 steals through 65 games total, which improved from the 44 he had in totality through 82 games as a rookie.

Team defense is still something Sexton needs to improve on, along with getting through off-ball screens, and while his passing you’d like to see develop more, he did show more willingness in that regard. For instance, he had 4.3 assists per outing in his last 15 games.

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Anyway, when it comes to Sexton’s case, to me, while I completely acknowledge he needs to show continued development in other areas next season, the 21-year-old clearly leaned into a primary scorer role, and was so consistent throughout 2019-20 to me.

Nance himself, had a rough stretch in December, for instance and to me, Sexton feasibly taking over the Cavs’ primary option role in just his second season and what was a rocky one for the Cavs overall was so impressive.

Sexton again needs to improve in other areas, I completely understand that, but for his play overall, he often kept the Cavs in games even for longer stretches than they should’ve been, really.

That shouldn’t be discounted, and his growth in terms of changing speeds in the pick-and-roll, improvement as a catch-and-shoot player/cutter and finisher was particularly noteworthy.

In Sexton’s last 33 games, he had 23.5 points per contest, and hit 49.3 percent of his shots, including 44.4 percent from three-point range, to go with 3.5 assists and 1.0 steals per game.

Anyhow, when factoring in the constant pressure Sexton put on opposing defenses, even with plenty of attention, and with how he on a quite a tear leading into the hiatus and eventual end to 2019-20 for the Cleveland Cavaliers, he’s personally my 2019-20 Cavs MVP.

I completely get Hughes’ rationale in regards to Nance, though, and Love, to an extent, but Sexton’s explosion in year 2 in this sense makes it tough to not go with him as Cleveland’s MVP, from my viewpoint.

Opponents will be game planning to stop him, to a large degree, going forward, and it’s tough to not go with Sexton as Cleveland’s 2019-20 MVP with the constant impact he had night-to-night.