Cavs: Cedi Osman will have his playmaking chances in rest of season

It’s been a fairly underwhelming season for the most part for Cleveland Cavaliers wing Cedi Osman. On the year, Osman has had a decent 10.0 points per outing in often a bench role in 24.9 minutes per game, but his shooting has objectively been off the mark.

A number of injuries to Cleveland throughout the season hasn’t aided guys such as Osman, but him having hit just 30.1 percent of his three-point attempts in 2020-21 has not been good. In the previous two seasons, even while he was in a starting role then, Osman did still hit 34.8 and 38.3 percent from three-point range in those years overall.

So needless to say, those struggles for Cedi in Year 4 with Cleveland have not been ideal; he has had a career-low effective field goal shooting clip of 45.2 percent, too, not suprisingly.

On the plus side, though, in his run, Osman’s passing/playmaking feel has been a key positive throughout the season. I don’t discount that from him, nor have I from Damyean Dotson, even while I still wouldn’t expect Dotson to be back next season, largely because of his shooting struggles and his deal for next season being non-guaranteed.

In Osman’s case, he’s had 2.8 assists per game on the year, which has been a career-best, and his 4.1 assists per-36 minutes have been, too. The same goes for his assist rate of 16.9 percent.

Similarly to Dotson, when the Cavaliers were very thin and even had Darius Garland and Collin Sexton out for a decent bit early on, Osman did an admirable job as a key primary playmaking option, too.

We’ve seen him, in a general sense, seemingly function as a de facto primary playmaker/key point forward-type bench contributor at times this season as well.

And although it’s not exactly a best-case scenario, realistically, Osman would appear set to have more playmaking chances to close out the year.

With the Cavs so injury-riddled, Osman will have his share of playmaking chances to close out the season.

The Cavaliers are so thin in regards to available primary or even de facto primary playmakers to close out the season at this point.

Darius Garland injured his ankle in the Cavs’ loss on Friday to the Washington Wizards, ended up missing Cleveland’s loss on Saturday to the Miami Heat and did not reportedly practice on Monday. That injury was an ankle sprain, and for Tuesday, Garland is listed as out against the Phoenix Suns, as h/t Kelsey Russo of The Athletic.

Additionally, Matthew Dellavedova sustained a neck strain in Cleveland’s loss on April 25 at Washington, and he and Larry Nance Jr. (fractured right thumb) will be sidelined the rest of the season, to comply with Cleveland adding Anderson Varejao for an end-of-career run with them via hardship exception. That’s per a report on Monday from Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.

And Fedor reported that Cleveland will be set to file a hardship continuation to essentially be granted a second 10-day from there for him, too, for what it’s worth.

Circling back, though, I still would like to see recent two-way signing Jeremiah Martin get some burn, and he could be a capable driving presence in some stretches for Cleveland, and two-way Brodric Thomas should get some playmaking run. That’s whether he’s at the 1 or 2 seemingly.

From there, to take some burden off of Collin Sexton, even while I wouldn’t have liked to see Osman in over Dylan Windler or Taurean Prince feasibly if they were healthy, and I’d think Lamar Stevens could’ve cut into Osman’s minutes, Cedi will get his playmaking run.

Windler (knee surgery) and Prince (ankle surgery) are set to miss the rest of the season and Stevens is banged up because of a concussion. And though I’m not noting from the playmaking perspective for those three, had they been available, one wouldn’t think Osman would be in there much. That’s also when factoring in Dellavedova, from a playmaking standpoint.

Osman had five DNPs before a start at Washington on April 25, but again, with the Cavs being injury-riddled in this last bit of the season currently, he’ll get his share of burn I would think. He has at least had some quality starts here of late, and even had a career-best 11 assists in Cleveland’s last game against Miami.

In five starts in his last batch of games active, Cedi has also averaged 14.6 points, and had 5.0 assists per contest. Albeit the perimeter shooting struggles have still mostly played out, as he’s knocked in just 31.3 percent of his deep attempts in that span.

That said, we have seen Osman recently show competence in a de facto lead playmaking role in stretches, and he has done a solid job. And the passing feel/vision from Osman has been the biggest bright spot for him this season, really.

In any case, it is tough to forecast what sort of role Osman might end up having looking onward with the Cavaliers, due to the shooting struggles and inconsistencies for him game-to-game, largely this season. The defensive deficiencies make it tough for him against starting caliber wings, also, in relation to the other end for stretches.

Plus, Osman, to go with Prince, was a key player mentioned in trade rumors leading up to the March 25 deadline, so one would imagine that one and/or the other could potentially be moved by next season. Prince, for what it’s worth, was playing well of late pre-surgery, though, as a shooter; we’ll see in regards to him next season, as he is set to be expiring.

As for Osman, he’s still set to be around for a while yet, for now, so we’ll stay tuned. In the mean time, with the Cavs’ injuries having been piled up, and with Garland banged up currently, and the others mentioned, one would assume Osman will have his share of playmaking chances to close out the season.

And perhaps a point forward-type role is the move with him in a rotational sense looking onward, if he were to stick around with Cleveland. His passing has feasibly been the constant with him and/or at least as a key secondary playmaking presence.

Maybe moving forward Osman can show more consistency as a perimeter shooter to be more viable as a rotational off-ball contributor, albeit that’s a big if.