Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 takeaways from Collin Sexton’s 2020-21 season

Takeaway #3: Sexton’s vision and defense need to improve, ideally, for the Cavs, but he’s not a finished product

Last but not least my third and final takeaway from Sexton’s third season as a Cavalier is that he’s still in the process of developing his game as a passer while trying to score and be an offensive threat for the team. Even though he averaged those 4.4 assists per game, I’m sure the Cavs would want him to become a little more of an improving passer.

The vision for him still is not necessarily strength, realistically. If Sexton improves his decision-making/with his vision, at least as a secondary playmaker, with Garland too, the ceiling is seemingly very high for him.

Another area Collin could show improvement is his defense but in his defense he is only 6-foot-1 but so is Chris Paul who is a part of nine All-NBA defensive teams in his career. Now I’m not saying he could be Paul but with his strength and size even being 6-foot-1, he should be able to at least compete defensively and take a few pages out of Paul’s book, who is one of the greatest perimeter defenders in NBA history.

The on-ball strides were seen in Sexton’s Year 3 as well, but off-ball, he has a ways to go, albeit guys such as Isaac Okoro and Larry Nance Jr., if healthier next season, should help.

Granted, defending 2s often isn’t so simple, and we’ll see the two staggered, and landing a quality defender in the 2021 NBA Draft should help, for example, and/or in free agency potentially.

That all being said there was positives and negatives in Collin’s game in Year 3, but you better believe there were a lot more positives than negatives. Scoring is definitely the one thing that stood out the most and the fact that he isn’t afraid of the spotlight or critics was nothing to gloss over.

He’s shown the ability to take over games when it matters most and that he wants to show that he can distribute when he’s asked to even though he’ll be sharing the ball with a pretty good young point guard in his own right.

Sexton can improve on defense with just a bit more development and he can start with taking leadership in this young team. He has his flaws sure but what young guard learning the game hasn’t?

Sexton has shown tremendous upside and what team doesn’t want instant offense and just a hard-working, hustling player that just has desire to get better? His ceiling can be whatever he wants it to be while continuing to set the right example for his teammates with his work ethic, and in turn, showing leaderhsip.