3 reasons next year will be make-or-break season for Cavs’ Isaac Okoro

Cleveland Cavaliers wing Isaac Okoro is still only 21 years old. When I saw that again, I was surprised. He’s been in the NBA now for two years and has done a fairly respectable job entering the league and producing on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball.

But the team that he plays for is entering a new era of basketball where they will likely be competing at the highest levels, where they get to the playoffs and start challenging to get to the NBA Finals and win one. That puts more pressure on these young Cavaliers including Okoro.

While Okoro has improved from year one to year two it may not be enough to change his use on the team. He’s been a regular starter these first two seasons and helped in many different ways to get his team so close to the playoffs this past season, but is it enough? We’ll discuss that question first. Then we’ll look at a couple other issues that could arise in the future that could make or break his future with the team.

Reason No. 1 it could be a make-or-break season for Okoro: Minimal improvement between year 1 and 2

We’re going to need to see some much bigger improvements from Okoro in year three. While there were improvements by Okoro in year two, they weren’t enough to say to ourselves, ” Yes, Okoro is the guy we need and should continue to be a big part of the Cavs.”

A lot has been written and discussed in the past two seasons about Okoro’s great defensive skills. While that part of his game has likely kept him in the mix on this team, it won’t be enough to keep him on the team as we move forward.

I understand traditional statistics don’t always tell the whole story. I had a daughter that played basketball at the collegiate level and her statistics wouldn’t always tell the whole story. Once her coach said of my daughter, “We’re just better with her on the court.”

She averaged roughly a career four points and four rebounds a game. She was a regular starter or sixth man and the teams she played on were very good and reached the highest levels of the NCAA tournament when she was playing.

I share this background, because I too recognize Okoro’s value to the Cavaliers, but with new players coming onto the team and the future in the NBA a tough task to predict for many of these young players, the former Auburn Tiger will have to really challenge himself to increase his production especially on offense.

When you analyze Okoro’s numbers you start to see that there wasn’t much improvement offensively. He started all 67 games he played in his first season. He nearly started all of the games in year two. His overall minutes played per game were slightly down from 32 to 30. His field goal attempts were down in the second season as well. He shot 8.3 shots per game in the first year and only 6.4 in the second.

While it seemed that he was taking more three-point shots in the second season he actually shot fewer per game. He went down from 3.2 a game to 2.3. His scoring average also went down to 8.8 per game from 9.6 in year one.

Getting his production up will be important this next season if Okoro wants to be a key member of the Cavaliers or his days in Cleveland could come to a close sooner than later. This is if he plays similar minutes regularly, in that sense.