Cleveland Cavaliers: 2 goals for Isaac Okoro in 2021-22

#2: Solidify himself as the Cavs’ best perimeter defender and average 1.7 steals per-36 minutes

Secondly, Okoro cementing himself as Cleveland’s best perimeter defender in Year 2 is the other key goal for me for him that comes to mind.

As we previously mentioned, even with the workload a particularly challenging one in Year 1 for Isaac, he held his own, despite often having to take on the games’ toughest matchups on the perimeter.

Okoro at times needs to be quicker laterally in matchups against primary playmakers, and when trying to navigate through off-ball screens to contest shooters, he did register some rookie fouls.

However, for a player that’s not 21 yet and was in his first season last year, again in a COVID-19-affected season at that, his defensive positioning was better than many would’ve expected, and he often forced opponents into high-difficulty shots. Those did fall at times, sure, and when a young player is defending against talented guards and wings, that happens, and it happens to the league’s best, even.

Okoro’s play showed so much promise on the defensive end though, and next season, with another year under his belt, I do believe he could solidify himself as Cleveland’s best perimeter defender. Lamar Stevens, for now, could be in the conversation otherwise, in regards to the on-ball sense, to echo our own Mack Perry’s projection. In terms of team defense in that realm as a rotator in those situations, I’d put Nance in that spot.

And then sticking to the team perspective for defense, while I thought Okoro’s feel there did show positive signs throughout and he did appear to improve his positioning/rotational timing as the year progressed, one would like to see more playmaking game-to-game there.

With him generally being in the right spots, Okoro having 1.0 steals per-36 minutes last season was a bit underwhelming.

I do think that having the likes of Jarrett Allen locked up long term and feasibly plenty of situations with Okoro on the floor with Evan Mobley, that Isaac can flex his muscles some more in getting to deflections/steals in passing lanes more, though.

I’d expect with more experience, and with hopefully a season with more normalcy, that Okoro could generate more than his share of takeaways this next go-round. With that being the case, I could definitely foresee him having 1.7 or so steals per-36 minutes, which would be a positive indicator of off-ball growth on defense in 2021-22.

But overall, I’m pumped to see how Ice does in Year 2 for the Wine and Gold; I do believe we could see a notable leap for him.