Cleveland Cavaliers basketball is on the horizon, which is great to know.
The Cleveland Cavaliers officially kick off their 2020-2021 preseason on Dec. 12, with the league officially starting the regular season on Dec. 22.
Despite only winning 19 games the past two seasons, the Cavs did not make any drastic changes this offseason.
This is in large part because of them adding Andre Drummond and promoting associate head coach J.B. Bickerstaff to head coach shortly before their season ended, so their big moves had already been made. Drummond ended up picking up his $28.7 million player option for next season recently, as was seemingly expected.
And, in a general sense, Cleveland will put out a similar team as you saw at the end of last season, which ultimately would be cut short for them due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. This extended break has left them with a nine-month break from games with Cleveland not having been an Orlando area bubble team, and plenty of time to take a step back, improve, and prepare for the next season.
But, when it does tip off, who will start the season the best?
Here are the three Cavs players who I think will start the fastest.
The first is probably not shocking.
#1: Cavs electric scoring guard Collin Sexton
This is an obvious one to me. Collin Sexton is likely the best player and scorer on the team. His play also only excelled when Bickerstaff took over at head coach, so nothing is holding him back from coming back in and delivering a high level of play immediately.
Sexton has also completed more games with the team and logged in the most minutes by far of anyone who still on the roster the past two seasons. This is an environment he is very familiar and comfortable with, which is rare to say about someone playing with this much experience after his only first two seasons.
Collin increased his scoring output from 16.7 to 20.8 points per outing from his first year to his second, too, and was only getting better as the season played out. It is reasonable to expect even more growth from him, possibly in other aspects of the game, such as defense and passing, and hopefully so.
Along with that, Sexton put on some muscle mass over this extended offseason, possibly up to 15 pounds heavier than his listing of 190. This will help him guard bigger players, especially if he plays more shooting guard this season with the possible emergence of Darius Garland, and in off-ball defense/getting through screens in that way, too.