#3: Isaac Okoro
Isaac Okoro started much of the season at the 2 because guard Collin Sexton was injured for most of the season. While Okoro is becoming a solid defender, his offense is still leaving something to desire. Okoro was thrown into his new starting role, this time at the 2 primarily and did a nice job, but it was obvious by the end of the season that Okoro shouldn’t be a starter but rather come off the bench.
There were stretches of games where the pressure of the starting role seemed to affect him and his play. It was nice to see him have his moments offensively and to be fair there were many. My personal favorite was in a game against the Houston Rockets at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse where Okoro took his talents to the rim in a big way when he embarrassed three Rockets converging on Okoro at the same time. It didn’t matter to Okoro as he slammed home the ball and woke up his team and the crowd that night.
Some that follow the Cavs might be surprised that Okoro averaged more minutes (32) in his first season than he did this past season with 29 minutes. But still, that’s a lot of minutes and Okoro simply couldn’t score buckets. He had 41 games where he didn’t score in double digits. More alarming is that he only had four games scoring 20 points.
With Sexton likely to return to the starting lineup next season it’d seem, Okoro will come off the bench and that seems like a better role for him.
Maybe he’ll get a few starts from time to time because of other player injuries but having him build up his offensive game might be better in not such a pressure cooker position as a starter.