NBA Draft: Cleveland Cavaliers receive C- in 2020 NBA Draft regrades

In the 2020 NBA Draft, the Cleveland Cavaliers came out with a single pick, taking Auburn wing Isaac Okoro with the fifth overall pick. He fit a clear need on the team as a potential lockdown perimeter defender who came with some offensive question marks.

One season later, the Cavaliers have plenty of data on their young wing. Okoro appeared in 67 games for Cleveland, totaling 2,173 minutes for the year. Of his fellow 2020 draftees only first overall pick Anthony Edwards played more.

That data, prevalent for Okoro and Edwards but less so for other top prospects such as James Wiseman and Onyeka Okungwu, nonetheless provides some amount of hindsight with which to look back on the 2020 NBA Draft. How did the Cavaliers and the other 29 teams in the league do with their draft picks?

To that end, our sister site Hoops Habit went back and redrafted the entire 2020 NBA Draft, and then assigned grades to every team in the league. Those grades ranged from “A” grades for the Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings, down to an “F” grade for the Phoenix Suns.

What grade did the Cleveland Cavaliers receive one season later?

The Cavaliers received a C- grade for their draft class, which consisted solely of Isaac Okoro at fifth overall. With “C+” being an average grade, that means their return one season later is decidedly below average, but not egregiously so. Seven teams finished lower than the Cavs.

Here is what Hoops Habit had to say when evaluating the Cavaliers’ draft.

"“The Cleveland Cavaliers assessed the talent on their roster and knew it had to get a defensive difference maker and it had to add wing players, and it just so happened that Isaac Okoro was available at 5 and fit both needs. The process was sound, but Okoro just hasn’t been awesome thus far as he really struggled offensively. Tyrese Haliburton would have given them a dangerous three-headed guard combo, or Saddiq Bey could have filled that wing need well.”"

It’s difficult to disagree with the overall assessment here. Okoro has struggled mightily on offense, shooting just 42 percent from the field and 29 percent from 3-point range. He has shown a willingness to move the ball and averaged 1.9 assists per game, but that’s not a strength so much as a less-weak weakness. Both Haliburton and Bey, among others, have been better than “Ice” after one year.

Yet the thing to key into is a few words in the middle of the above quote: “The process was sound.” The Cavaliers knew last November that they needed to add defensive difference makers to this team. They did so in the draft, taking Okoro, and they did so via trade a few months later adding center Jarrett Allen from the Brooklyn Nets in the James Harden deal.

One season in, many rookies have played better than Okoro thus far. They may continue to do so, and the odds at this point have to be that Okoro will not end up a top-5 player from this draft class. From that angle, the Cavaliers got a less-than-great return on the pick they went into the draft with and deserve a C- grade.

Yet Okoro is still young, and this iteration of the Cavaliers does not need him to be the primary offensive option, nor even the secondary. With the third overall pick this season, the team will likely add a player with a higher offensive ceiling and even further lift the expectations off of Okoro’s shoulders.

What the Cavaliers need is a wing stopper, and Okoro is still very much on that trajectory. If he can improve on “Elsa-from-Frozen” cold 3-point shooting to league average, suddenly he becomes a great fit on this roster. A year from now a Cavaliers regrade could be much improved; Okoro is far from a lost cause.

Looking ahead, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a lot of potential, both in their young core and in the draft picks they have yet to take. Whether they turn that potential into production will decide whether this rebuild earns a better grade than “C-” when all is said and done.