Cavs’ Ochai Agbaji can make his mark, regardless of swing skill growth

Ahead of his rookie season, one could foresee what the Cleveland Cavaliers were thinking with their selection of Ochai Agbaji 14th overall in the 2022 NBA Draft. Cleveland had been linked to Agbaji throughout the pre-draft process, and his three-point shooting and movement sense were the attributes that stood out from his selection by them.

Agbaji got better as a perimeter shooter over the course of his time at Kansas, and in his junior and senior seasons, when he was more of an offensive focal point, his three-point shooting was marketedly better. In those seasons, he had 14.1 and 18.8 points per contest, and he connected on 37.7 percent and then 40.0 percent of his 6.9 and then 6.5 deep attempts per game.

Agbaji is a player that could have the makings of a knockdown shooter for the Cavaliers in coming seasons, if he can receive the requisite opportunities to get into a rhythm.

It’s not exactly a simple thing to forecast when ample chances for rotational time do come for Agbaji, if those arise early in the upcoming season, that is.

There’s plenty of others involved at the 2 and 3 spots. This is whether or not a trade involving restricted free agent Collin Sexton (via sign-and-trade in that scenario) could play out, or if the currently expiring Caris LeVert could potentially be moved.

Cleveland is reportedly said to have interest in the Utah Jazz’s Donovan Mitchell, in relation to possible trades. Now, I personally would be surprised if Cleveland were to actually land Mitchell, given the massive haul it’d seemingly cost, and could foresee that ended up as a lateral move, as an aside.

Either way, as it pertains to Agbaji, it’s again probably going to take some time into the season for the Cavaliers to divise ways to get him real stretches of play game-to-game. If he does receive some legit stretches, though, and the shooting pops, he could earn his keep fairly soon into the year, in my opinion.

All of that being said, just looking onward, in that realm, it does seem as if Agbaji’s swing skill, ultimately, is clear. No matter if there is true progression there or not in coming years, however, he still can make his mark for the Wine and Gold in a notable way.

Agbaji’s swing skill is likely whether he can develop a real off-the-bounce game for the Cavs, but he can still make his presence felt even if that doesn’t really come.

Agbaji’s skill level looks to be off-the-bounce scoring. There were flashes of that at Kansas, sure, it’s just difficult to say if that’s going to be viable on a fairly consistent basis at all at the NBA level, and playmaking was pretty minimal for others from him.