Cavs Player Grades: Cedi Osman starts well, then cools off some
By Dan Gilinsky
Osman’s 2021-22 defensive play
Osman’s defense is going to have limitations. We’ve seen that in his time with the Cavaliers for a number of seasons, as he has problems containing opposing wings and guards on drives.
Those limitations are part of the reasoning as to why he’s not been a starter much in his past two seasons.
During this recently-concluded season for Cleveland (as a result of their second play-in loss to the Atlanta Hawks), Osman again had some issues on-ball in his minutes.
Lateral quickness and getting through off-ball screens are issues for him, and as a bench contributor, he didn’t a great defensive rating, considering his minute inconsistencies. That was 109.2 for him, which wasn’t awful.
As we touched on, though, Osman’s limitations on defense were feasibly part of why he wasn’t a regular, per se, in quasi-crunch time for notable stretches.
I do have to give him his due for some timely plays with him registering deflections and steals, helping the team get out and run, on the plus side. His team defense did seem to be more on-point when he was regularly involved in the rotation this season, too. I don’t gloss over him having 1.3 steals per-36 minutes.
Unfortunately with Osman, there were still too many lapses defensively, and that was tough to see, and played into why his minutes were somewhat sporadic as the season wore on, combined with streaky shooting.
As for his defensive grade for this season, objectively, I have to go with it being about as I would’ve thought heading in, at a C+.