3 Cavs players on the hot seat after 2022 NBA Draft

3 Cavs players on the hot seat after 2022 NBA Draft: Isaac Okoro

When Isaac Okoro was drafted fifth overall in the 2020 NBA Draft, the team started him at small forward for his entire rookie season to see if a line of Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Okoro was viable. Okoro did his best, but he didn’t have the size to defend larger forwards and lineups with him at the 3 were a disaster defensively and just as bad on offense.

Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff declared before last season that Okoro was a 2, and indeed he played the bulk of his minutes at the 2 last season. The results were much better, and lineups with Okoro on the court were above water. He finished with a positive Defensive Box Plus-Minus and flexed his ability to defend opposing guards.

The problem was on offense. To his credit, Okoro improved as a shooter, hitting 35 percent of his 3-point shots after hitting just 29 percent as a rookie. Yet on a team starting Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley the Cavs need more shooting at the 2, leading to questions about whether Okoro was in line to be the long-term starter at the 2 or if the Cavs would look for a more offensively-minded option.

By taking Ochai Agbaji with the 14th pick in the draft, the Cavs have now added another shooting guard. Collin Sexton is a restricted free agent, Caris LeVert is better at the 2 than the 3, and now Agbaji at 6’5″ is in the fold as a likely shooting guard. That doesn’t mean Okoro is out of the starting lineup or the rotation, but it does put him firmly on the hot seat.

It’s a crowded room, and Okoro has to take another step forward as a shooter – both taking and making 3-point shots – to justify keeping him in the mix over a more versatile player in Agbaji. The rookie will need some adjustment time, but if he is nailing his shots and picking up the defense early on, Okoro’s seat could be warming quickly.