Cleveland Cavaliers: 2 reasons to be optimistic heading into 2021

The Cleveland Cavaliers have gotten off to quite the start to 2020-21.

2020 has been a long year for most, but a relatively short one for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They had their 2019-2020 season cut short by 17 games and just recently kicked off their 2020-21 campaign which also began with a delayed start to the season, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

That doesn’t exactly equal a boring year for the Cavs, as some of their big moves included bringing on a new head coach by promoting then-associated head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, and they traded for Andre Drummond via deadline deal with the Detroit Pistons.

Additionally, Cleveland selected Isaac Okoro with the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft.

The Cavs are off to an excellent 3-1 start this season, too.

So with 2021 starting on Friday, here are two reasons to be optimistic about the Cavs heading into the new year.

#1: The Cavs Darius Garland-Collin Sexton backcourt

Guards Collin Sexton and Darius Garland are both off to great starts this season, and it’s the most promising part about the organization’s rebuild, by far. Garland has been averaging 18.5 points and 7.8 assists per game along with Sexton averaging 25.3 points and 3.8 assists per game.

It’s worth mentioning this is an extremely small sample size of four games, but there is still promise. Darius had found a rhythm, something that was inconsistent last season, and also has shown upside as a playmaker and an ability to create for others. This alone is something to be happy about for next year and is huge for the Cleveland Cavaliers’ offense going forward.

Sexton’s play is very encouraging, too, because this isn’t new. Sexton finished the past season with similar stats to the start of this season.

While Bickerstaff has been the Cavs head coach, Sexton has flourished, and every game makes this increased level of play from him feel less and less of a coincidence and boosts confidence this could be his new norm.

They’re both also so entertaining to watch with their respective styles of play. Garland and Sexton provide contrasting styles to one another and could very well become a legitimate duo threat.

#2: Stability for the Cavs/hopefully steady progression for the young core

The Cavs have made many changes with their roster and staff these past few seasons, but it’s starting to feel like they will finally gain some type of stability and traction moving forward.

Bickerstaff feels like he’s the guy for the long-term at head coach and someone who can instill a culture of improvement and help build something with the team.

The Cavs’ young core is also something promising. Outside of the guard duo, the Cavs also have Kevin Porter, Okoro, Dylan Windler, who is currently sidelined due to a fourth metacarpal fracture, and Cedi Osman.

Porter Jr. is someone who people may be forgetting about a little bit, as he’s not appeared yet due to personal reasons, but before this season began it wasn’t that far-fetched to believe he had the biggest upside out of the young players on the team. Porter showed plenty of flashes as a rookie, and had 10.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game as mostly a bench contributor.

Cleveland’s 2020 first-rounder in Okoro has looked like what’d you hoped in his first few games and has shown the difference he can make on both sides. He also fills a need of a defensive wing the Cavs have needed for a while now, and did show positives there, as KJG’s Amadou Sow emphasized.

Hopefully, he can get healthy regarding his foot sprain soon enough, and Okoro is reportedly out on Thursday at the Indiana Pacers.

And while a timeline isn’t certain yet, let’s hope he can join back with the squad in timely fashion in relation to him being recently placed into the NBA’s health and safety protocol. That’s in relation to COVID-19; albeit as h/t Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, no NBA players tested positive for that in the league’s latest round of testing since Dec. 24, so that’s encouraging.

From there, Cedi Osman, who is still only 25, had been playing some of his best basketball this preseason and in the start of the regular season, primarily off the bench, and that just shows how much deeper the Cavs could potentially be this season.

No matter what ends up playing out with the veterans on the team, it’s reasonable to expect this young core they’ve assembled to stick around for a while and be building blocks for the team in the future.

While the ceiling for the 2021 Cavs remains unknown until we see more of them, the floor feels higher than in recent years and has plenty of upside with their young core improving steadily.