Isaac 3 & D Okoro - A Two Way Playing Basketball Savant

[Wham with the Right Hand]

By the rate it is going... Kay Felder would be taller than him by the end of the season, lol....

Let's stop laughing at him. He's been 19 years old most of the season. He's been asked to guard the other team's top wing every game. He's probably playing out of position. He should be coming off the bench. He doesn't have the offensive skills to play the 2 or 3 right now. But he is 6'5", 225 pounds, a big leaper, loves defense, and he seems to be willing to work his butt off to develop into a productive pro.

From his scouting report:

Playing primarily off the ball, Okoro did much of his scoring this season filling lanes in transition and as a floor spacer but showed an ability to create for himself efficiently in limited opportunities as well. An aggressive slasher with impressive speed who takes the ball strong to the rim and absorbs contact looking to finish with authority, he also shot the three better as the year went on and showed to ability to drive and dish playing a key role in Auburn’s success.

Okoro shoots most of his 3's from the angle which is further away in the NBA. It's not working. He doesn't have a good shooting stroke as evidenced by his struggles at the free throw line. Okoro needs to take a page from Larry Nance's book and shoot 10,000 threes in the off-season. Nance shot 24% with the Lakers, 33.7% his first year with the Cavs, and is at 38.1% this year, so you can improve with enough practice even starting from zero. But it took him five years to get to 35%. Okoro needs to accelerate the process by whatever means necessary.

He also needs to improve his dribbling. Do what Delly was doing in that video he tweeted - put a bunch of cones on the floor and weave through them, switching hands. I think NBA players are so superior physically in high school that they think they don't need to work on fundamentals. Look at what endless hours of dribbling practice did for Kyrie and Steph Curry.

Okoro needs to play a lot of minutes this year, but I would bring him off the bench. Then his off-season needs to be consumed by daily dribblng and jump shooting practice. He's learning the hard way that he can no longer dominate through sheer physicality.

 

[CavsFan07]

Leave it to Cavs fans to continue preaching “patience” when the guy hasn’t shown one part of his game that he can do at a high level in the NBA...

And no, don’t tell me his defense is something he’s doing at a high level. I’d advise you to watch the tapes before you say something like that.

End of the day this guy is projecting to be a mediocre role player at best... which is what many of us Cavs fans were afraid of when he was getting so hyped up on this forum.

 

[Futuredome]

If he had better guard skills, I would be down with him. He doesn't and that is what kills. Rebuilding if full of pits. Move on and roll the dice again.

 

[macbdog]

We could use a 6'7" wing who hits 42% of his threes. But after we took Okoro 13 teams passed on Bey so it's not like he was sitting right there and we blew it.

Uh... He was right there and, if Bey is legit, they really did blow it. I'm not willing to write off Okoro, seems like a competitive guy but stymied on why they thought a short SF was the way to go.

 

[rastamon87]

Let's stop laughing at him. He's been 19 years old most of the season. He's been asked to guard the other team's top wing every game. He's probably playing out of position. He should be coming off the bench. He doesn't have the offensive skills to play the 2 or 3 right now. But he is 6'5", 225 pounds, a big leaper, loves defense, and he seems to be willing to work his butt off to develop into a productive pro.

From his scouting report:

Playing primarily off the ball, Okoro did much of his scoring this season filling lanes in transition and as a floor spacer but showed an ability to create for himself efficiently in limited opportunities as well. An aggressive slasher with impressive speed who takes the ball strong to the rim and absorbs contact looking to finish with authority, he also shot the three better as the year went on and showed to ability to drive and dish playing a key role in Auburn’s success.

Okoro shoots most of his 3's from the angle which is further away in the NBA. It's not working. He doesn't have a good shooting stroke as evidenced by his struggles at the free throw line. Okoro needs to take a page from Larry Nance's book and shoot 10,000 threes in the off-season. Nance shot 24% with the Lakers, 33.7% his first year with the Cavs, and is at 38.1% this year, so you can improve with enough practice even starting from zero. But it took him five years to get to 35%. Okoro needs to accelerate the process by whatever means necessary.

He also needs to improve his dribbling. Do what Delly was doing in that video he tweeted - put a bunch of cones on the floor and weave through them, switching hands. I think NBA players are so superior physically in high school that they think they don't need to work on fundamentals. Look at what endless hours of dribbling practice did for Kyrie and Steph Curry.

Okoro needs to play a lot of minutes this year, but I would bring him off the bench. Then his off-season needs to be consumed by daily dribblng and jump shooting practice. He's learning the hard way that he can no longer dominate through sheer physicality.

Not laughing at him, just find it funny people are saying he is shrinking every game...

In my other posts, I have mentioned the guy cares and plays the right way.... He is taking his lumps now but I feel in a couple of years he'll be a good starter who does the other stuff that helps the team win (i hope as a SG)... I feel the same thing qith Windler also if he can avoid getting injured all the time

 

[bleachkit]

You cant draft guards that cant shoot. Should have known this wasn't going to work.

 

[guitarguy]

This thread went downhill quickly. I think with the mess of injuries and everything else, plus lots of youth, it is way too early to throw out all hope. Especially since people were so high on him when we were playing well a month ago.

Until our coach institutes any kind of offense, and perhaps 3 of our best players aren't on the bench for one reason or another... we can reevaluate.

 

[Blazie]

I agree. Hard to assess without a pf or an actual offense to run.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

John Hollinger in The Athletic assesses all the rookies as we approach the halfway point. He feels this draft class is turning out to be a lot better than expected based on the early returns. He divides the rookies into tiers. Okoro is in Tier 6, titled "Playing a lot doesn't mean playing well."

Isaac Okoro, Cleveland (5th pick) — Okoro will get the benefit of the doubt as a high-wire athlete, particularly since his defense is solid enough to keep him in the lineup while the Cavs wait around on his offense. For instance, how many guys can do this? [Video of a monster dunk off a baseline drive]

That said, the rest of Okoro’s offensive package is … not even really a package. It’s more like a tree sapling that still needs to grow in a forest for 20 years or so, get cut down, dragged down the hill and into town, processed at a mill, converted to cardboard, shipped across the ocean and then shaped into a package. In theory, he can get there, but it all feels a very long way away. Okoro is shooting 25.5 percent from 3 and scoring a meager 11.1 points per 100 possessions; in fairness, he also goes long stretches while hardly touching the ball at all.

More worrying for an alleged athlete, his rebound rate is in LOL territory at a pathetic 4.0 percent — the worst figure of any player 6-5 or taller and the eighth-worst in the league. (But amazingly, only the third-worst in the Cavs starting lineup!) Usually, players with elite athleticism make their first impact in the rebounds/blocks/steals line and then pile skill on top, but Okoro is invisible here. He’s still figuring out how to make his gifts impact the basic stuff.

There it is - no offense other than an occasional spectacular dunk when the seas part and no rebounding. Invisible in terms of scoring, rebounds, blocks, and steals. A lot of guys drafted lower than him doing much better, including Immanuel Quickly, who was drafted 25th by the Nets and is in the first tier along with Ball and Halliburton.

Among other players reputed to be considered by the Cavs at #5, Devin Vassel (11th pick) is in the second tier. Obi Toppin and Deni Avdija, drafted 8th and 9th, are in the fifth tier ("Starting Slowly"). Killian Hayes, the 7th pick, is in Hollinger's 7th tier ("We might have a problem here") while Onyeka Okongwu (6th pick) is in the 8th and lowest tier ("Witness Protection").

So the players drafted 6-9 are either doing worse than Okoro or only slightly better (5th tier).

 

[CavsFaninNJ]

So the players drafted 6-9 are either doing worse than Okoro or only slightly better (5th tier).

That's what is most important. Some people will look back and find guys drafted 10-25 who ended up being better players - but those guys were never in the running for the fifth pick. It's like saying we lost out on Giannis by selecting Bennett. No, we lost out on Oladipo. (Also, passing on Oladipo because you already have Dion Waiters is almost as fireable of an offense as drafting Bennett.)

 

[WorldFreeB]

I'm loving these excuses,,,player x was never in the running at 5,,,so we didn't do anything wrong.
Your scouts have to be better than that,, for gods sake thats what they do for a living.
If Saddiq Bey turns out to be better than Okoro then they screwed up badly.
I want to know if they thought they were drafting a 3 and then after getting him into the program
realized he wasn't going to cut it there he would have to be a 2. How will his offense ever be good enough to play the 2?
This guy is giving me David Nwaba vibes.

 

[The Oi]

Man this guy sucks

 

[weepinwillow]

This guy is giving me David Nwaba vibes.

That is the risk, though I feel like his floor is more like Justise Winslow, who's a legit professional basketball player but nothing particularly special. Guys do add catch and shoot jumpers to their repertoire, which imo is all he needs to be a + starter.

 

[CavsFan07]

At least I sleep good knowing I bitched on this forum for months before the draft when many Cavs fans were begging for us to draft him.

I didn’t see it then, and I damn sure don’t see it now.

The David Nwaba comparison is very fair...... and sadly accurate.

 

[Ohioplayer00]

I'm loving these excuses,,,player x was never in the running at 5,,,so we didn't do anything wrong.
Your scouts have to be better than that,, for gods sake thats what they do for a living.
If Saddiq Bey turns out to be better than Okoro then they screwed up badly.
I want to know if they thought they were drafting a 3 and then after getting him into the program
realized he wasn't going to cut it there he would have to be a 2. How will his offense ever be good enough to play the 2?
This guy is giving me David Nwaba vibes.

I have been saying this for years! The weakest part of our FO is scouting department! The HC and GM take their cue from what these guys tell them! And for years our scouting department has underachieved