It’s been something of a new feel-out process for Cleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton this season. He shifted to more of a 2 guard role, or combo guard role to some degree, last season, and this season, he’s seemingly been more off-ball.
With Darius Garland’s presence, that plays into it. Plus, offseason acquisition Ricky Rubio, who has exceeded expectations, has been on-ball throughout stretches of games; so Sexton’s role has been reduced a bit.
He’s still heavily involved, though, and while the iso/pick-and-roll opportunities appear to be less, Sexton still has instances where he’s Cleveland’s bailout option and in transition/early offense, the looks are there. In the open floor, he’s so difficult to account for, too, with his strength going toward the basket, sudden quickness and speed end-to-end.
Nonetheless, there has been some kinks Sexton does need to iron out. It’s again seemingly been some of an adjustment for him, and him beginning the season shooting 27.0 percent from three through nine games indicates that. Granted, I do think that will start to turn around, as he gets more comfortable in stretches alongside Evan Mobley, and the same goes for him in learning to play off of Lauri Markkanen and Rubio.
Also, Sexton does need to clean up his turnovers, more so with those involving him not changing his pace up, leading to either blocked shots or steals that are live-ball situations.
He’s going to have some shots blocked on drives as a 6-foot-1 guard, but it’s the ones in settled scenarios where he’s not seeing kickouts, or him forcing the issue and getting stripped that are the detrimental ones.
Sexton having 1.9 assists-to-3.2 turnovers per game thus far, honestly, does not necessarily show that he has been demonstrating more willingness to make the right play, though. He has been finding extra passes more inside, or making sensible swing passes, that may or may not result in hockey assists in other instances, too. For more so a secondary playmaker, that’s fine.
All of that said, regarding the scoring, which has seen a dip compared to recent seasons, with him averaging 17.7 points per game, it’s still apparent that can lean on getting to the free throw line.
Sexton should be able to lean on getting to the line for now.
To reiterate, I’m not suggesting I want Sexton forcing it when defenses are taking those looks away and it can result in turnovers in mid-clock.
But there will be plenty of instances where Sexton can still use his speed and strength/toughness to get to the tin as a driver and, combined with that, his improved cutting off-ball can help him generate more And-1 opportunities.
It’s been nine games, so that’s still small sample size territory. However, Sexton had 6.4 free throw attempts in 35.3 minutes per game last season, and despite a minutes reduction early on, has still had 5.2 per-36 minutes so far in Year 4. That’s correlated to Sexton having a free throw rate of 31.2 percent, for context.
So, an early takeaway from his scoring has been, although the deep looks and some pull-ups have not gone down, I prefer him taking in-rhythm triples and generally, Sexton can lean on getting to the line for now.
Whether it’s from early offense/transition or when Sexton comes downhill off handoffs, with still some pick-and-roll work, with his speed and improved strength in recent years, it’s tough to keep him off the line. And him still getting there at a pretty robust rate is encouraging, even while his free throw efficiency is down initially at 74.4 percent; I don’t read much into that, for what it’s worth.
Moreover, for now, Sexton can still get the line often throughout games for the Cavs, and as he continues to get more comfortable more off-ball, the looks will fall more in-line with what one’s used to.
In the mean time, he’ll be able to generate his share of free throws, including in crunch time I believe, and his finishing thus far has been very efficient. He’s shot 72.7 percent in the restricted area, per NBA.com’s shooting data.
Collin will be just fine.