Cavs: How Isaac Okoro and Damyean Dotson will help one another

Isaac Okoro and Damyean Dotson should have a good rapport in minutes together for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

I was pleased with the Cleveland Cavaliers drafting Isaac Okoro last week, in large part because of his defensive capabilites/switchability, but also due to his finishing/playmaking feel at the other end.

While I’d expect Okoro to be a bench contributor initially, with his defensive chops on-ball and being much more fluid laterally than Cedi Osman, and being a more versatile player, he should be Cleveland’s starting 3 pretty early on.

Okoro, who hit only 28.6 percent of his three-point attempts in his lone collegiate season at Auburn, needs to progress as a spot-up player, and he’s not much of a pull-up threat.

But with how Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman himself and Larry Nance Jr. have progressed greatly as shooters, at least off-the-catch in recent seasons, I don’t see why Okoro can’t be a competent spot-up player in the near future if he puts the work in. And he’s reportedly a tireless worker.

Early on, though, I’d still imagine Okoro should be able to get his way to the rim via drives, in the open floor and via cuts when he’s out there. Albeit, as KJG’s Billy Beebe recently illustrated, Okoro should be utilized as a secondary playmaker, anyhow.

He’s more than capable as a drive-and-kick wing in settled offense, at least when it comes to spraying out to shooters, and he should help the likes of Sexton, Darius Garland, Kevin Love and Dylan Windler in that regard, and I’d think more so as he gets more time.

Another key target for Okoro, though, when he’s on the floor with him, whether it’s from just ball-swings, skip feeds or drive-and-kicks, could very well be the recently-signed Damyean Dotson. And Okoro and Dotson should aid one another overall in minutes together.

We’ll get into how Okoro and Dotson will help one another for the Cavs.

Firstly, Okoro, who was a solid secondary playmaker when he was given the opportunities at Auburn, should be able to create looks in minutes-share alongside Dotson, feasibly with the former at the 3 and the latter at 2 in rotational minutes more so for Dotson I’d think.

Dotson, even with pretty minimal spacing in the past two seasons for the New York Knicks, hit 36.8 percent and 36.2 percent from three-point range on 4.7 and 3.4 attempts per contest.

He’s a highly capable catch-and-shoot threat, and in instances on the floor with Okoro, should be a regular target for the Auburn product after drawing in rotators and dishing to Dotson, similarly to Windler or Love, for example. For context, Dotson hit 38.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot triples last season with New York, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data.

Clearly, if Dotson can knock down looks in those instances, after dishes from in this case, Okoro, to go with Garland and Kevin Porter Jr., realistically, that should only aid Cleveland’s drivers from a spacing perspective.

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Dotson, along with the spacing element, should give Okoro a quality off-movement shooter to target via skip feeds and from off-screen looks from curls after JaVale McGee or Andre Drummond screens, along with flares/staggers set by a few bigs, too.

I’d expect those type of looks to be a good shot in times those two are on the floor, potentially with KPJ at the 1 on occasion.

And if Okoro’s on-ball defenders start to anticipate those, that could enable Okoro to use sudden quickness to get parallel/beat his primary matchup and get to the rim, where he’s such a polished finisher with both touch and power.

Also, in terms of the off-ball screen element in relation to Dotson, though I wouldn’t expect it to be the case a ton, the sturdy 6-foot-6, 225-pound Okoro could open up looks at times for Dotson by setting him flares/pindowns as an added wrinkle.

As a counter to that, with Okoro being a proficient cutter, he could at times peel off those, too, and roll to the basket for a delivery from Garland, perhaps the recently re-signed Matthew Dellavedova or Larry Nance Jr.

On occasion, Dotson himself, is the look is there, could feed a slipping Okoro after he sets an off-ball screen for him on the wing as well, even, and Okoro, who placed in the 89th percentile on shots around the rim in the halfcourt, per Synergy Sports, could very well convert.

Lastly, in terms of the defensive end, with Okoro being an especially active team defender/rotator, he should definitely aid Dotson as a stunter to driving threats, and Okoro could help Dotson at times on the weak side near the basket. Okoro had a healthy 3.1 percent block rate in 2019-20 at Auburn, and similarly to other perimeter players, his recognition as a rotator will help Dotson in their instances on the floor.

On the other end of that defensively, though Dotson is not a lockdown guy, he could at 6-foot-5, 210 pounds, hold his own to a large extent if cross-matched a bit on to Okoro’s primary matchup, and as a rotator, Dotson’s improved in recent seasons with his feel. And he plays with great effort on defensively, which does jump out.

Anyway, we’ll have to see as far as the minutes-share, but Okoro and Dotson could aid one another with both moving without the ball particularly well, and Okoro being a willing and able secondary playmaker, and with Dotson being a quality off-movement shooter.

As a brief side note here, given the day, I just wanted to express how thankful we are for all your viewing, readers. It means so much, and from all of us here at KJG, we hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving! Thanks again, and go Cavs!