Ideally we need passing, floor spacing, and perimeter defense, and Cade provides just one, maybe one and a half of those things if you want to be generous about his passing. That doesn't sound like an ideal fit to me.
I'm not sure how a wing that averages nearly 6 assists per 100 and has shot 42% from the extended line on 100 attempts, does not provide both passing and floor spacing? Just objectively speaking?
As I have said previously, AST/TO ratio doesn't seem to correlate to anything for wing types, from what I see. There are high turnover guys, there are low turnover guys.....success cases in both groups. If turnovers are a general concern, that is fine, they concern me as well......but Cade isn't a bad
passer and I wouldn't pass on him merely because he turns the ball over. He has vision, he throws passes with accuracy, he's
at worst a ball mover as a good shooter. He generates his turnovers off the dribble.....but he does so with really good isolation scoring numbers. So it is certainly a tough call on his projection but I believe the film is more indicative of his turnovers being made worse by a lack of spacing and teammates who are sub par shooters. He's also being defended in a way that NBA teams will just not be able to defend him......by congesting driving lanes, helping off shooters and planting a big man in the paint to just stand there and hang out.
Perimeter defense, we'll see.....it is a much tougher thing to quantify. But I would bet a lot of money that Cade will defend his position better than Garland defends his......so if Okoro can focus on defending 1/2 and not have to defend 1/2/3, I think there is a net gain there......but maybe I am being too generous.
From a roster standpoint, we have to make one of Sexton or Garland work, relative to our investment and the general under performance of our other draft picks. In Sexton's case, the talent he has shown thus far makes him the easy choice for who you try to turn in to a #2 on a good team. Holding on to this (to me) fantasy that Sexton and Garland can work together is a way to draft the wrong guy again. We already made that mistake once with Okoro IMO. We are trying to make something work that no NBA team has made work, right? And we hilariously are trying to be the first team to make said combo work with 1 player who, to this point, looks like a completely average guard. It just seems silly to me personally. Maybe Portland has
sort of made it work......but that is with an entirely transcendent player, which we don't have.
I think Cade and Sexton are more interchangeable as creators in an offensive system. Sexton more as scorer and Cade more as a point forward type that has shooting gravity. And you insert Okoro as the clean up the scraps guy. Both Cade and Collin can be put off the ball and have value, so that also potentially helps unlock Okoro's driving ability and gives him more space to operate. Barnes has no off ball value on offense to me, similar to Okoro. I'm not sure how the quartet of Sexton / Garland / Barnes / Okoro makes sense, as you can't really have two of those 4 guys guys on the floor together at the same time. It just really limits your options, where you are trying to have to over manage rotations. And I also don't believe any player has the defensive ability to cover for both of those guys. If he did, from what I have seen, he might be the best defensive player of all time.
Cade isn't my first choice.....but if we are trying to make a pick on the wing that best suites our current roster, to me, he is that guy. He gives you more of what the team needs and a path to a backcourt that makes sense. If the idea is to try to make the pieces we have work or
as many of the pieces as we can work, IMO his skill set is most complimentary to the most players. I personally like Barnes more, just from what I have seen........but to me, both Barnes and Green are guys you have to just start over and build around. Cade is a more volatile type of prospect but his collection of skills is most likely to make 2 of our last 3 picks make sense collectively. So if we don't have an appetite for starting completely over, I can see why he would be a good fit for the Cavs.
So I personally struggle with how Barnes' inability to shoot just really doesn't mesh quite as well with lineup combinations, relative to Cade. But maybe you can squeeze enough shooting out of the 4 and 5 to make it work.
