The Cleveland Cavaliers frontcourt could look quite a bit different next week, when the NBA trade deadline hits and this rebuilding team aims to acquire some value for rebounders like Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson. Frankly, it is going to be difficult to move Love's contract, but Thompson has to draw interest. Even after Monday's nice win in Detroit, the Cavaliers are a game from the bottom spot in the Eastern Conference, looking ahead to another lottery trip.
The backcourt, however, is looking good from a fantasy aspect. For the first few months of the season, it was rather easy to ignore sophomore shooting guard Collin Sexton and rookie point guard Darius Garland. Things have changed in January. Sexton hit 10-of-19 field goals and scored 23 points Monday, contributing five assists, and he is averaging 22.6 PPG in January over 35.3 MPG, and shooting 47% from the field and 91% from the line. That certainly works. Sexton is up to 75% rostered in ESPN leagues.
Garland, the 20-year-old prodigy who barely played at Vanderbilt, had a tougher game Monday, hitting 3-of-10 shots for 6 points, and his shooting remains erratic, but he has shown nice signs of vision and playmaking ability this month, averaging 14.3 PPG and 5.1 APG, with the 3-point shooting the main negative. Hey, he averaged 2.7 APG in December, so fantasy managers can easily make the case for him with his assist rate nearly doubling. The best is yet to come, especially for those in keeper formats.
What the Cavaliers will look like by the end of next week or in the fall could be problematic, but it is clear this franchise needs a scoring forward who can shoot and play off Garland's pick-and-roll capabilities, and a rim protector in the Hassan Whiteside mold would sure be nice. The Cavaliers remain a rather rough defensive club, which is not a surprise with a pair of undersized guards and by far the worst block rate in the sport. The Cavaliers average 3.3 BPG, or barely more than Portland's Whiteside alone. Love and Thompson remain the lone qualified teammates averaging double-digits in rebounding, but opposing drivers to the basket do so with little fear. Love has one block in January.
Still, from a fantasy aspect, at the margins of a roster, one should always look for younger players making strides, and Sexton and Garland fit that narrative. The Cavaliers might have initially chosen Sexton with the No. 8 pick in 2018 thinking he could handle the point guard responsibilities, but now he appears to be a blossoming shooting guard reminding many of Portland's CJ McCollum, who is averaging better than 20 points per game for the fifth consecutive season, but with little aid in assists and steals. That is OK. McCollum is rostered everywhere. Sexton has that look.
Garland, the No. 5 pick in the recent draft, looks nothing like Damian Lillard at this point, but there is significant upside if he can refine his shot and the club surrounds him with other scorers. Could you see 17 PPG and 7 APG in Garland's sophomore season, something like Memphis rookie Ja Morant is doing this season? I could. Remember, Garland played only five games in college. He was a teenager until Sunday. Project ahead and realize growing pains happen to most rookies. No, I cannot say I would rank Garland near Morant for the 2020-21 season, but those in keeper formats must take note, for he is currently on the most dropped list and it seems odd timing.
Here are some other hoops thoughts on the final Tuesday of the month.
Speaking of Lillard, he has scored 158 points over the past three games, and simple math tells us that is darn good. Why is this happening? It has to happen for the Blazers to compete! Even with Whiteside, the leading shot blocker who is also among the rebounding leaders, Portland's defense is sieve-like. The Trevor Ariza addition is interesting. He should play a ton of minutes but he is not the defender he once was, though he is much better than Carmelo Anthony. Still, expect double-digit points and perhaps 1.5 SPG.
Houston's P.J. Tucker is relevant in deeper formats for his 7.2 RPG and 1.2 SPG, and his shooting percentages are fine, but man, he is just not shooting enough this month. Tucker averages six field goal attempts per game for the season in 35 minutes, but in January it is less than four FGA per game. Lillard shot four times while you were reading this. Tucker has 14 field goals in 12 games! Points are not everything in fantasy, and those making the case for 76ers rookie Matisse Thybulle (11 steals the past three games) know it, but just a bit more scoring would be nice!
Victor Oladipo plans to debut for the season on Wednesday and he is rostered in most leagues already, but I will say the same thing I did a few weeks ago on New Orleans rookie Zion Williamson. Be cautious with expectations. Oladipo has missed a year with a torn quad, and with the Pacers' talent around him, I do not expect him to score close to 20 points per night. Also, there will be "load management" issues the final months. A healthy Oladipo next to a healthy Malcolm Brogdon sure entices for a first-round playoff upset of Toronto or some other team.
Early thoughts on Williamson: he can score at will, so far, and efficiently, and his minutes figure to rise soon. I still think the club will hold him out for more games than fantasy managers would like. As for his shooting, he looked awesome draining four 3-pointers in his debut, but in the two games since he took only two shots, one in each game, and missed them. This was not a range shooter at Duke. He has also missed 10-of-16 free throw attempts; if he cannot do better, opposing teams will deliberately foul him, as we see with Dwight Howard and Ben Simmons. Missed free throws matter. More on that next week. Still, how can we not love watching Zion perform?
Chicago's Lauri Markkanen was already one of my bigger disappointments, with numbers down across the board, but I had to cut him in a daily league with him missing at least another month with a stress reaction in his pelvis. It hurts to type that. The Bulls are going nowhere so there will be no rushing of injured players. Markkanen should have been hitting more 3-pointers and averaging close to 20 points per night. He was not doing so. Not sure how to rank him for next season.
Injured Portland center Jusuf Nurkic is up to 26% rostered in ESPN standard leagues and it sounds like he could debut this season sometime in February, but again, the Blazers figure to handle his minutes carefully, though a playoff berth is possible. I added Nurkic long ago in a keeper league and have needed the roster spot several times, but resisted. Wise? Tough to say, since Nurkic, who broke his leg last March, only might be a top-50 player next season. One assumes the Blazers move Whiteside to make room, and, for fantasy purposes, a new team might mean new numbers.