Cavs’ Collin Sexton is ascending, B/R’s 2020-21 prediction rank shows

Cleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton was recently ranked as Bleacher Report’s #100 in their prediction of the top 100 NBA players for 2020-21.

Collin Sexton closed out last season, or what ended up being the end of last season due to novel coronavirus concerns, on what a scoring tear. The soon-to-be third-year Cleveland Cavaliers guard had 24.2 points per outing on 50.3 percent shooting in his last 25 games active of 2019-20.

Leading into the past season’s COVID-19-induced hiatus/ultimately the end of last season for Cleveland, with them not having been an Orlando-area bubble team, Sexton hit 45.2 percent of his three-point attempts per game, too. That was on 5.0 deep attempts in that aforementioned span.

In Year 2, Sexton led the Wine and Gold with 20.8 points per outing, as he continued to make overall strides as a three-level scorer. Sexton showing the ability to change speeds off-the-bounce, in particular, really paid off for him in a big way, too.

He did, even while the advanced metrics didn’t completely illuminate it, show positive signs on-ball defensively as the year progressed, and him having 4.2 assists per contest in his last 15 games was a plus in the passing sense.

Admittedly, though, Collin does need to show further improvement game-to-game in the defensive (especially in the team sense) and passing realm. That said, what he demonstrated as a scorer in Year 2, and even more so how he closed out, shouldn’t be discounted.

And that sort of thing was factored into Sexton appearing on Bleacher Report’s latest Top 100 ranking of NBA players, per their Dan Favale, with this time heading into the 2020-21 season.

B/R predicting Sexton to be in their top 100 NBA player rank shows he’s on the way up for the Cavs.

For his/B/R’s prediction of ranking the top 100 NBA players for 2020-21, Favale hit on how Sexton’s scoring again, shouldn’t go unnoticed.

"“Fully appreciating Collin Sexton demands the proper perspective. Judge him against the baseline for floor generals and you’ll leave unimpressed, if not completely disenchanted. Accepting him for what he actually is-a combo guard who errs on the side of off-guard-allows everything to change.Sexton’s scoring impact is real.Only five other players cleared 20 points per game and matched or exceeded his efficiency on twos (50.1 percent) and threes (38.0 percent) while attempting as many treys (255): Jaylen Brown, Brandon Ingram, Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton and Karl-Anthony Towns.”"

From there, Favale did touch on how Sexton does need to improve defensively/as a passer, which is fair, albeit some growth signs were there last season.

Anyway, for a few brief side notes, Favale/B/R in that prediction of that top 100 for 2020-21 did note that rookies, such as Isaac Okoro, weren’t included, and a few key injured players, such as Klay Thompson, were not. Kevin Porter Jr. was listed as a second/third-year player that wasn’t strongly considered but is worth “keeping an eye on,” per Favale.

Andre Drummond and Kevin Love were listed as currently #70 and #61 on the list heading into 2020-21 by Favale, as another quick note regarding the Cavs, which were both reasonable. Drummond may have been a bit high, granted.

Albeit circling back to Sexton’s rank, that shows that the third-year guard is on the way up.

Although Sexton reportedly had some struggles in Cavs training camp, even before his minor ankle sprain, of which wouldn’t seem to be nagging, really, he should be back to filling it up for the Cavaliers soon enough. That’s after feasibly rust early on/in the season’s first few games, perhaps.

Based on how he closed out last season, and with Sexton’s truly rare commitment level/approach to the game, and with how he’s established himself as a knockdown spot-up threat, I’d only imagine Collin takes more strides as a scorer in Year 3.

Playing into that, Sexton adding more muscle over what was an extended offseason should help him on-ball/improve as a finisher in both settled offense and in transition as well.

Moreover, I simply can’t wait to see what Sexton does in 2020-21, and frankly, I’d expect him to further solidify himself as a fixture in B/R’s player rankings/prediction rankings from this point forward.