The Cleveland Cavaliers and especially their fans loved Collin Sexton. He may have been gone for years, but it's still encouraging to watch him breathe new life into his career from afar.
Thursday night, the Charlotte Hornets played the Orlando Magic and their suffocating defense. LaMelo Ball and rookie Kon Knueppel were swarmed by opposing limbs and held to mediocre scoring totals. One player who did manage to break through? Collin Sexton.
Sexton led the Hornets with 19 points on 5-for-7 shooting from the floor and another six free-throws added on. His power and aggression getting to the rim draws contact, and he not only led the team in free throws but had the same number as the rest of the roster combined. On a night when the rest of his young teammates were strangled on the perimeter, Sexton broke through.
That has been something of the story for Sexton this season. He has been on fire to start the year, shooting 60 percent from the field and a blistering 64.3 percent from deep, putting up 18.6 points per game. He started the first few games beside Ball and then moved into the super-sub role he was in for much of his time with the Utah Jazz the past few seasons.
Collin Sexton was beloved in Cleveland
Scoring and drawing fouls is not a new thing for Sexton, of course. He was the same relentless bulldog of a driver back at Alabama, which is what impressed the Cleveland Cavaliers enough to draft him in 2018. He put up 6.4 free-throw attempts and 24.3 points per game in his third season, the best of his career. His leadership and joy were attributes his teammates and fans loved during his time in Cleveland.
Sexton has been relegated to losing teams the past few seasons after he was sent to the Utah Jazz as a part of the Donovan Mitchell deal. The Cavaliers certainly don't regret the move, and it's clear that Darius Garland has been a better regular season player than Sexton over those years, but most in Cleveland likely wished for Sexton to find success elsewhere.
He did a solid job of that in Utah, often operating as the sole "adult" in the lineup and scoring efficiently, but it was happening on a team trying to lose. The Charlotte Hornets are not exactly contending, but they did specifically go after Sexton to inject him into their backcourt. They have been a scrappy team to start the season, with Ryan Kalkbrenner looking like a second-round steal at center and their young players have solid starts.
If Sexton sticks around, he has a chance to be the high-octane scoring guard off the bench on an ascending team. There is a trail of high-scoring guards who hit a certain age and couldn't find a consistent role in the league. Sexton's strong start to the season in Charlotte speaks to an excellent season to come, one that can propel him into free agency not as an afterthought but as a prime target.
It might mean everything for his career.