Last Friday, 23 days into NBA free agency, Chris Fedor reported that restricted free agent Collin Sexton had received a three-year offer from the Cavaliers worth about $40 million. He is not known to have received any other offers. Before you decide whether this offer is fair or not, I’d just like to offer a list of players who make more than the average $13.3 million per year that Sexton would make on average if he were to sign this deal:
Sexton is coming off a torn meniscus. He never played in the playoffs. Limited free agency has lost better players a lot more money. This is all reasonable. It’s not as if there aren’t valid explanations for Sexton’s dry market. Maybe there is a problem here. A player like Sexton shouldn’t take weeks or months to find a contract. That means 30 NBA teams are getting tricked at the same time. Or taking crazy pills. It’s one of two.
Over the past five seasons, a total of 32 players have averaged 24 points per game at least once. Let’s classify them into tax classes:
Points per game obviously aren’t the greatest value, but at a certain point when everyone else getting buckets is making $25 million or more a year, it’s worth asking why Sexton is being offered half that. It can’t just be his injury because Dinwiddie has been hurt worse and Fultz almost never plays. Jones’ contract even suggests his current market value is below that of a top-tier backup. Derrick Rose does even more than Jones to send the same message. Of course, Cleveland retains the rights to play Sexton as a restricted free agent, but Lonzo Ball, Malcolm Brogdon and Terry Rozier have all been able to land $20 million-per-year deals on the restricted market through sign-and-trades. That’s what Sexton is supposedly looking for, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
Just 18 months ago, Sexton finished just behind Fred VanVleet and just behind Kyle Lowry in the overall All-Star voting. Now he is struggling to manage the elite spare cash. What does it give? Let’s try to find out what scares suitors, what should attract them in the first place and how this mess will end in the end.
Why don’t teams want to pay Sexton?
For those of us less Twitter-inclined, Sexton’s ball-catching exploits became something of a meme early in his career. Read also : Let’s Remember How 2002 Was Awesome For Video Games. Here’s one play in particular that helped give Sexton that reputation, mainly because of Kevin Love’s hilarious reaction.
There is some truth in memes. In his earlier years, Sexton was not only a hesitant pitcher, but also quite ineffective. Sexton led the Cavaliers in assists per game as a rookie, but did so on just 45.5 assists per game. Only two teams in the NBA were led by a less-frequent transfer player that season: the Los Angeles Clippers, who also started a rookie in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the San Antonio Spurs, who lead one of the NBA’s most played leagues. egalitarian crimes. The Cavaliers have embraced Sexton’s identity, ranking 24th in assists per game, but more concerningly, completing just 8.3 percent of their assists. Only the Knicks helped at a lower rate, and Sexton was one of the main problems at just 6.5 percent. He rarely passed, and when he did, it didn’t lead to an effective offense.
But fielding is one of the slowest skills to develop in primary ball players. It was Devin Booker’s fourth season and he had almost the same number of assists (45.6) in as many minutes per game. Jayson Tatum followed this arc even though he wasn’t an actor. Just 5.8 percent of his passes as a rookie turned into passes. Last season, it was up to 9.5 percent. While neither Booker nor Tatum are traditional point guards, both have grown significantly as players over time. Sexton was on a similar path before the injury. In his third season, 8.9 percent of his passes turned into assists and he averaged a career-high 49.2 assists per game despite sharing point guard duties with Darius Garland. Sexton may never be a typical point guard, but he can grow into a passable player as a very useful ball handler.
The growth in play among those less inclined to pass is pretty linear. Defense is much more of a wildcard. Some players understand this. Some don’t. Sexton has not yet. Avert your eyes because his defensive metrics are truly unpleasant to look at.
The glass is not half full here. If you’re looking for a “still a few sips left in the glass” perspective, the thing is, there’s a measurable improvement here. He’s still a bad defender, but he’s gone from really abominable to really bad. Progress counts! Effort is actually no longer a problem. He’s always been very motor driven and his physical tools are pretty good. He moves well laterally and combines his incredible height (6-1) with a respectable wingspan (6-6). But given his size, he’s extremely limited in who he can defend (mostly guards and point guards). He’s never going to be able to switch or offer much as a help defender, and he really struggles to get around screens. There is a limit to how good he can be defensively, but he can certainly be better than he was.
Booker is another great example. His defensive numbers were as ugly as Sexton’s to begin with. In recent years it has grown to something mediocre. What has changed? Age, for example. It takes time to fully grasp everything that is happening on the floor. Team culture has been another driver of Booker’s growth. Phoenix’s dysfunction in his early years was well documented. Monty Williams cleared it all up. If the 2010 Suns had an Eastern Conference equivalent, it was the Cavaliers before Evan Mobley. Sexton played for four head coaches in four years. Nature may limit Sexton a bit, but he wasn’t exactly raised as a defender either. There is definitely room for improvement in a more stable environment. He doesn’t have to be a corker. He needs to get where Booker is now: good.
Sexton is on the right track regarding these weaknesses. His medical condition is a little more unclear. A meniscus tear can be a difficult injury. Lonzo Ball tore his meniscus as a rookie with the Lakers. He has struggled to stay healthy since then, suffering another meniscus tear last season. Zion Williamson also struggled with a meniscus tear as a rookie, and while his recovery time was shortened, Robert Williams III battled through injury during the season. No two players and their recoveries will be the same, but meniscus injuries are often followed by further problems. To some extent, Sexton is a health risk. The risk-versus-reward calculation will vary from team to team, but based on the offers Sexton has yet to receive, it appears teams are underestimating the potential reward here.
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What makes Sexton so potentially valuable?
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So where is Sexton going to end up? Where should he?
Collecting a lot of points is difficult. Scoring a lot of points efficiently is more difficult. Scoring a lot of points efficiently early in your career may be the hardest thing to do in all of basketball. There are few greater barometers of future glory than this, and Sexton checks all three boxes. Only 16 players have scored 24 points per game on 57 percent or better shooting before turning 23. This may interest you : LEGO releases Atari 2600 video game console set, honors 1980s nostalgia. Sexton is one of them. The other 15 made all-NBA teams. You’ve probably heard of most of them. Michael Jordan. Kevin Durant. Luka Dončić. And the actor we keep coming back to in this story: Booker.
Sexton is not as good as Booker. It may never be. His offensive skill set just isn’t that diverse. But don’t his critics sound a lot like Booker’s early in his career? Booker was once considered a pig. His defense was outraged. It was somehow his fault that he never played on a playoff team. And then, the moment they gave him a playoff coach and a roster of competitive caliber, he made it all the way to the finals. Is it so hard to believe that something like this could happen for Sexton in the right environment?
It shouldn’t be. On a team with very little support infrastructure, Sexton managed to score in the most important ways a player can. He was one of only 33 players to take 200 shots into the penalty area in the 2020/2021 season, but only eight of those players were traditional defenders. Among those eight, only Damian Lillard and Zach LaVine had a higher percentage from 3-point range than Sexton’s 37.1 field goal percentage. His 34.7 percent free throw rate that season beats any year of LaVine’s career and all but Bradley Beal’s best.
Will Sexton ever master Chris Paul’s midrange? No, and he likely will never be able to weaponize his drive as a passer the way players like James Harden have. In that sense, the highest level of on-ball attacks probably isn’t available for Sexton, so he should be paired with another very active teammate who can make heavy shots and shoulder a bit of the playmaking load himself. All of this tells us that Sexton is unlikely to win MVP or lead a championship team in the near future. But the next level down, the zone where guys like Beal and LaVine reside? That’s not exactly likely for Sexton, but it also doesn’t seem like an unreasonable level to aim for. He hits many of the same markers as Booker used to. If he’s healthy, there’s no reason to believe he can’t immediately compete for an All-Star spot in the right environment. The better question is whether he will be able to find that setting.
