Cleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton was not exactly given praise in a recent list by Bleacher Report.
Recently, Cleveland Cavaliers youngster Collin Sexton was a name brought up in a fantasy draft of players under 23 by Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley and his placing in this article is interesting, to say the least.
The article starts fine, with Buckley’s top five being Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, Ja Morant and Trae Young, in that order. After these five, it starts to get weird. Before we get to Collin Sexton’s placement, let’s look at some of the other questionable placements.
At number 10, we see Tyler Herro. Herro had a great rookie season where he helped the Miami Heat reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014 but, Herro is someone who thrived off of being in a great system with great players. Don’t get me wrong, Herro is a fantastic player but placing him at 10 is very debatable.
Moving on, we have Buckley placing Marvin Bagley III at 13th, above another young big man in P.J. Washington. Bagley is a tough player to judge, seeing as he hasn’t played much due to injuries and when he has played, it hasn’t all been great.
Washington is someone who is a much better defender and shooter, while being a slightly worse scorer and rebounder, as statistics show. As it stands now, Washington is the better pick and it will be interesting to see how Bagley progresses over his career.
Now, let’s get to Sexton. Sexton is a 20-plus point per game player who is efficient and gives maximum effort but, according to Buckley, he isn’t worthy of a top-20 pick among players who are under 23 as of Nov. 5, when the article was published……
Sexton’s ranking was likely low, given what he’s shown for the Cavs.
Sexton comes in at 24th, behind De’Anthony Melton, Jarrett Allen, Luguentz Dort, Coby White and co-teammate Kevin Porter Jr. Moving down the list, having Melton over Sexton is illogical.
Melton averaged just 7.6 points per game, shooting inefficiently from the field at 40.1 percent and was resorted to a backup role. Jarrett Allen isn’t as bad as a pick as Melton but, will never be more than a fourth-fifth scoring option on a playoff team, something that Sexton can be.
Luguentz Dort provides great defense but is nothing more than a catch-and-shoot player on offense and even then, he struggles at that. Dort is someone who projects to be nothing more than a 4th-5th option on a playoff team, and even that may be pushing it. Coby White seemed to pop up on this list due to his great stretch at the end of the season but, Sexton’s late-season stretch isn’t mentioned at all.
Lastly, we get to Kevin Porter Jr. and he is the only reasonable one that was stated above Sexton.
So, to drive it home, let’s look at why Sexton was likely rated low.
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In B/R’s article, the two main concerns seem to be Sexton’s lackluster defense and apparent inability to be a primary playmaker. The issue with this is that B/R/Buckley does not apply context.
Sexton runs a backcourt with Darius Garland, a player who is 6-foot-1 and a turnstile on defense. Stats show Darius Garland mightily struggled this past season. Additionally, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a shortage of defenders and that is more a personnel problem than a Sexton problem.
Moving on to his playmaking, this was never a part of his game that was looked at. His playmaking improved over the season and Sexton has real potential as a secondary distributor.
The article seems to completely negate or minimize other players’ weaknesses while highlighting Sexton’s. The article starts off by talking about how fit, production and growth are taken into account but that doesn’t seem to coincide with what is shown IN the article.
Sexton is someone who could fit in anywhere as he is a nice off-ball scorer, at the very least. He just averaged 20.8 points per game on great efficiency at 47.8 percent shooting in just his second season and his late-season spurt leads me to believe that he will continue to get better each year.
For further context, in his last 15 games active, Sexton had 24.5 points per contest on 50.6 percent shooting, which included him hitting 44.2 percent from three-point range on 5.1 deep attempts per contest. Plus, Sexton putting on 10-15 pounds of good weight over what’s been an extended offseason should only aid him as an overall scorer and transition player, also.
Nonetheless, it has been tough for Sexton to gain fans since he has come into the league, seeing as he had his share of doubters early on it’s seemed. And on a recent appearance on the Wine & Gold Talk Podcast with Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor and Hayden Grove, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst noted how those he’s talked with around the NBA think Sexton’s a “bench player.”
Windhorst did then hit on with Fedor and Grove how those people believe, though, if Sexton’s “your first guard off the bench, you’ve got a really good team.” But then Windy stated they still consider that the “kind of role he should be in.”
Sexton deserves respect and it seems as if the only way for him to gain it is to continue to shut the haters up. Sexton will continue to improve and hopefully, if B/R/Buckley make another article similar to this, his spot on it will be much, much higher.