3 lineups Cavs can deploy with new draft pick Ochai Agbaji

3 lineups Cavs can deploy with new draft pick Ochai Agbaji: Rain the Threes

The last lineup to try out will swing the pendulum hard the other way. One big question for the Cavs next season is whether they can get enough shooting on the court, especially when starting two bigs and involving middling shooters like Caris LeVert and Ricky Rubio or Raul Neto in the full-time rotation. This lineup maximizes shooting to try and blow the roof off of opposing defenses.

PG: Darius Garland; SG: Collin Sexton; SF: Ochai Agbaji; PF: Lauri Markkanen; C: Kevin Love

Ochai Agbaji steadily increased his 3-point shot over the course of his college career, shooting 37.3 percent over all four years on a healthy 671 attempts; as a senior last year, he hit his high-water mark of 40.7 percent on 253 total attempts, or 6.5 per game. He isn’t the next Duncan Robinson, but that should be a real weapon of his in the NBA.

Therefore adding him to the above lineup would stretch opposing defenses to the max. Kevin Love is one of the best stretch-5s in the game, hitting 39.2 percent of his 3-pointers last season and bombing away to the tune of 10.3 attempts per-36 minutes last year. Darius Garland is an absolute sniper and is working on mastering the pull-up 3; when given the chance to move off-ball he becomes that much more lethal from the outside.

Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton both were a little shaky from deep last season, but both have the ability and track record to right the ship and get that percentage back close to 40 percent or higher next season. What’s more, the spacing of this lineup would give Sexton some wide-open spaces to attack with his relentless forays to the rim. This group would have some real defensive questions to answer, but they could spark a “Cavalanche” offensively that just outruns opposing teams.

The Cavs have a lot of possibilities awaiting them next season, and the versatility and skillset of Agbaji unlock a lot of lineup options to try. Perhaps one or more of these three becomes a rotational mainstay as Agbaji finds his niche helping this team push back towards the playoffs next season.