Cavs need to find ways to get Cedi Osman back in rhythm

The Cleveland Cavaliers are having their share of shooting woes overall this season, and while injuries earlier largely played into that, they’re just in a particularly rough place right now.

The schedule for the Cavs lately hasn’t helped, and Kevin Love having missed nearly all of the season to this point hasn’t exactly aided their perimeter shooting efforts, in particular, either.

Albeit while Darius Garland and Collin Sexton have steadily been efficient from three-point range, we would like to see more three-point attempts in coming games, ideally, from those two, but I’ll give Sexton more of a pass with how much pressure he puts on defenses. In Garland’s case, though, he has done a nice job in pick-and-roll, and his lob deliveries to Jarrett Allen often been on-point.

But objectively speaking, Garland, who has hit 41.0 percent of his three-point attempts this season, and clearly has his shiftiness back, needs to shoot more pull-up triples looking onward, from my perspective.

Anyhow, while I’ve been pleased with him on the season largely from a secondary playmaking, and even at times primary playmaking standpoint, one thing that’s been tough to see lately for the Wine and Gold is that Cedi Osman has hit a rough patch. Osman only played in Cleveland’s loss at the Portland Trail Blazers for seven minutes, for whatever reason, and was scoreless.

And though I’m not letting Isaac Okoro off the hook, whose struggled lately, and frankly should be playing I’d say 5 or so minutes less than his average of 33.5, Osman will still continue to get his considerable share of opportunities/burn in games. I would think in most occasions, at least.

He’s a key bench piece, either way, but lately, it’s apparent that for him, as Cedi can bring some juice to the squad, they need to get him going again.

The Cavs need to find ways to get Osman back in rhythm.

Osman started off the season pretty well, and though he had to have a bigger role earlier on because Cleveland was especially banged up, such with Darius Garland, who missed eight games due to a right shoulder sprain, he was consistently aiding Cleveland.

Again, in the playmaking realm, his contributions, and as was the case with Damyean Dotson, were felt consistently, and again I know the injuries played into it. Osman averaging a career-high 3.6 assists per-36 thus far, while that’s not a huge clip, I give him his credit for, though, and Cedi’s had a 15.0 percent assist rate on the year, with a turnover rate of just 7.0 percent.

And while him starting a fair amount probably did play into it to some, Osman still was seemingly in a far better rhythm as a shooter earlier on. He was showing some ability to hit three-point looks off movement, even, which was a positive, and that’s been the case here and there.

That said, Osman, who hit 38.6 percent of his 6.4 attempts per outing in 11 games from Jan. 9-Jan. 31, has fallen off, and some of that is just due to his inconsistency, which has been the case throughout his past two seasons, as we know. But this last stretch has been puzzling, as though Osman’s minutes have dropped, obviously, Cedi has had his share of open opportunities still and has been with Garland still a good amount.

More from King James Gospel

• 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
• The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
• 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
• 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
• This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead

In Osman’s past six games, he’s hit just 31.0 percent of his shots his shots overall, and has only hit 16.7 percent of his three-point attempts.

Those have been only 4.0 attempts per game, though, and he had played under 19 minutes per game in that span, not including Friday’s L, and with it, 16.8. That has played into it, you would think, but again, a good part of that has seemingly been because of his struggles.

To me, however, while more productive ball-swings need to come about to help guys like Cedi, and the Cavs need to probably do away with a significant amount of Jarrett Allen-Andre Drummond lineup minutes, Osman has not even been close in recent games.

With him having some issues lately, though, they should allow him to be more of a playmaking presence, as he was earlier, and allow the likes of Darius Garland/Collin Sexton to play some more off-ball, in minutes on with Cedi.

Osman has the requisite feel and vision needed to hit timely skip feeds, and he can still hit some occasional lobs over-the-top to Allen, or somewhat, with Drummond.

Then some straight-line drives time to time as a counter could maybe be there for Osman? That’d seem reasonable, and/or get some free throw chances for him, which have gone by the wayside.

The other way I could see Osman, though, and more realistically, get back into more of a rhythm could be with the Cavaliers utilizing him as a cutter more.

While Drummond himself is a key subject of trade rumors, and it leads one to believe, per rumors/reports and a recently suggested trade with the Toronto Raptors from Forbes‘ Evan Dammarell, who are reportedly interested in him, that he’ll be moved by the deadline, he could help Osman in that realm still somewhat.

The same goes for Garland and Sexton clearly, who could look to hit a cutting Cedi via diagonal cuts on the weak side on occasion, sometimes via back doors to counter closeouts and perhaps Osman a bit more off movement looks coming around Allen off-ball screens could aid Osman/Cleveland.

Love coming back hopefully seemingly pretty soon should help, in a general sense, but if the Cavs can get Osman back in more of a rhythm game-to-game, it could bode especially well for other perimeter pieces, and bring man movement back more so into the fold.

Hopefully that plays out, and for context, while Love has been mentioned as a subject of trade rumors, factoring in when he is healthier, regarding him having been out because of a high-grade right calf strain, I still wouldn’t expect him to be dealt during this season. In the offseason, that would seem to be more feasible.

But for the Cavaliers in coming games, I’d look for Osman to be more involved some as a passer, get some more minutes-share and hopefully, we can see him get his stroke going again.