3 potential Cavs duos to watch with 2020 draft prospect Isaac Okoro

Potential Okoro Cavs two-man game #2: With Kevin Love

Okoro’s potential two-man game with Kevin Love also jumps out, in a fairly similar way to Windler, with Love being such a polished shooter. That’s both off of movement and via spot-ups off of direct deliveries and via ball-swings.

Love hit 37.4 percent of a career-high 7.0 three-point shot attempts in 2019-20, and in what would be plenty of burn with Okoro, especially more and more as next season progresses, Love would benefit from Okoro’s presence as a driver/with Okoro’s feel for hitting spray-outs. That’s clear as day.

But in the pick-and-roll side of operations, a pick-and-pop with Okoro as the PnR ball handler and Love as the screener could be particularly promising. That could lead to Okoro being able to get some quality drives by snaking there and getting on to a big, leading to some blow-bys/free throw opportunities for him, and/or other drive-and-kicks to follow.

And again, Okoro, who is timely with his passes to the perimter, could get Love some pick-and-pop looks from deep, of which Love is more than capable of knocking down, even without much air space.

Love could take advantage of hard closeouts by Okoro’s primary defender there, too, and go into one of his effective ball fakes, leading to free throws/in-rhythm one-dribble pull-ups, of which he can hit as counter.

So how about the other end of the spectrum, then?

With Love’s ability to playmake out of the high and mid-post and feed cutters, and also make skip passes to perimeter players, leading them into shots/right into drives, he could find Okoro often and get him into a rhythm as a result.

When opponents come to double in those situations, Okoro could get looks via initial feeds to Love there, and getting it quickly back to him, leading to him getting a head of steam for a drive. That could result in a natural look, or for Okoro to go right into a spin move from there.

In terms of another way Love could have nice chemistry with Okoro would be from Okoro setting an off-ball screen for Windler, Collin Sexton and/or Kevin Porter Jr., and then if his defender looks to help cut off a pass, Okoro could peel off that back screen/flare. Then maybe a quick cut could come from there, where Love could find him.

Lastly, Love outlet passes to Okoro in the transition game following defensive rebounds could definitely result in some touchdowns for the Cavs, too. And Okoro, who placed in the 76th percentile in transition scoring situations, per Synergy Sports and as h/t The Stepien’s Spencer Pearlman, would be very difficult to stop in those sequences.

In the secondary transition game, Okoro could hit Love as a trailer at times as well as a smart decision-maker in those instances, and/or Love could feed Okoro if he gets cross-matched on to a smaller defender to go into a drive.