• Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.

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

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

Who is Isaac Okoro's Favorite Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor?

  • Arcadius (if one does not count Constantine as first)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Justinian the Great

    Votes: 8 14.3%
  • Zeno

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Heraclius

    Votes: 3 5.4%
  • Basil II, the Bulgar Slayer

    Votes: 6 10.7%
  • Nikephoros II Phokas, the Pale Death of the Saracens

    Votes: 7 12.5%
  • Alexios I Komnenos

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • John II, the Beautiful Komnenos

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Constantine XI

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • Jim I Chones, the Magnificent

    Votes: 26 46.4%

  • Total voters
    56
Isn't contributing on a championship level harder as a rookie?

Carving out minutes on a team trying to win is an almost impossible task for a first year player.

The fact that Kawhi and Harden contributed at an above league average level, on a good team, is exceptionally rare for rookies.

Okoro wouldn't even be playing on a good team, which stats aside, is a qualitative measure for how good a player is.

I'm not saying he's a bust.......I even said he was, IMO, playing out of position. But even playing out of position, you would just expect the net results to be better, relative to the number of minutes he is playing.

It is concerning that his splits don't intimate he is adjusting to his role or the competition.....but I don't think we can use stats in this thread, because they don't matter. Rookies on bad teams don't put up good sta......


You think he sucks and is getting too many minutes. I think he is playing so many minutes because he is good. So, we have a fundamentally differnbet approach to evaluating what he has done so far. You admit that advanced analytics on defense are poor, right? Do you honestly believe that Harden as a rook was a better defender? I just can't watch Okoro and think "this guy sucks" he does too many good things, and he is too smart. Maybe he isn;t worthy of a top 5 pick, but we will find out eventually. I don't think we have learned much other than he can handle the pounding better than Halliburton can right now along with heavy minutes.

I don't mind bringing up Haliburton at all. I said he was THE pick for the Cavs and that if Darius didn't turn into a star, we would look back at passing on Haliburton as potentially ruining our rebuild or at least missing on pairing Sexton with a guard who could maximize him. I thought Haliburton was the best pick for us outside of Lamelo(because i knew the order at that point). I just knew the Cavs weren't taking a pg this year because they said so.
 
It's a big assumption but let's say Okoro hits his absolute ceiling and Haliburton does the same, who do you take?

Haliburton for sure. Relative to his passing, his ceiling is that of a #1B playmaker. I don't think Okoro's best case is in any way an engine on offense. Okoro's ceiling seems more like a +3D type. He has shown little ability to attack and create off the dribble in isolation, so I just can't envision him as a self creator on offense. And that isn't even considering the high level shooting Haliburton has displayed at all levels.

I have the same hedge thought you did......and it is specifically why I am pretty harsh on not Okoro the player but the decision to draft him. You can't be wrong in both instances......and I worry that is going to be the net result here. That Sexland is going to be a failed experiment and we will have drafted a player more in an effort to make that work and missed on one of the really, really good players and an ideal pair for Sexton (who looks like our best asset).
 
Last edited:
You think he sucks and is getting too many minutes. I think he is playing so many minutes because he is good. So, we have a fundamentally differnbet approach to evaluating what he has done so far. You admit that advanced analytics on defense are poor, right? Do you honestly believe that Harden as a rook was a better defender? I just can't watch Okoro and think "this guy sucks" he does too many good things, and he is too smart. Maybe he isn;t worthy of a top 5 pick, but we will find out eventually. I don't think we have learned much other than he can handle the pounding better than Halliburton can right now along with heavy minutes.

I don't mind bringing up Haliburton at all. I said he was THE pick for the Cavs and that if Darius didn't turn into a star, we would look back at passing on Haliburton as potentially ruining our rebuild or at least missing on pairing Sexton with a guard who could maximize him. I thought Haliburton was the best pick for us outside of Lamelo(because i knew the order at that point). I just knew the Cavs weren't taking a pg this year because they said so.

No, I don't think he sucks. I was more responding to the notion that Kawhi and Harden are examples of why we should be optimistic about Okoro. I think those guys literally couldn't be worse examples. They were ready to play and contribute on good teams and did so at a high level for rookies. Someone gave Brown, which is an interesting one. Rangy, athletic, BBIQ type where it clicked. We can all hope Isaac is that.

Part of this is admittedly unfair to him. I think he was both over-drafted and asked to play out of position. It is one of the reasons why I hope we just figure out exactly what it is we are doing with Darius. Being stuck in the middle on Garland is wasting Okoro's development time at his likely position (SG) while also simultaneously asking him to do something much harder (play the 3).
 
Last edited:
he's shown he can attack the rim and posterize centers. did it against jokic and now turner. we see the glimpses... in season 2, he should be 10x more aggressive and should do that more often.
 
Got abused defensively tonight. Rough one for him.
 
No, I don't think he sucks. I was more responding to the notion that Kawhi and Harden are examples of why we should be optimistic about Okoro. I think those guys literally couldn't be worse examples. They were ready to play and contribute on good teams and did so at a high level for rookies. Someone gave Brown, which is an interesting one. Rangy, athletic, BBIQ type where it clicked. We can all hope Isaac is that.

Part of this is admittedly unfair to him. I think he was both over-drafted and asked to play out of position. It is one of the reasons why I hope we just figure out exactly what it is we are doing with Darius. Being stuck in the middle on Garland is wasting Okoro's development time at his likely position (SG) while also simultaneously asking him to do something much harder (play the 3).
Except Garland is irrelevant. He is a undersized 3 that lacks skills to be a guard. If you can't get that......welllllll
 
The Cavs have made it to the AS break. I am still high on Okoro's potential as the Cavs should be. Love to watch this kid attack the basket. He is a competitor and obviously wants to win...he is great at anticipating where he needs to be defensively which is a good sign overall. He is a good/willing passer and is actually a decent 3 pt shooter at home which is fairly typical for roleplayers (which he is at this point). With that said here are obviously some things he needs to work on:

1. He has the potential to be a very, very good 1-3 defender (well at least as good as you can be in this era of the NBA which tries to handicap defenders). He is very good at anticipating the ball and opposing offensive players movements. He really needs to work on anticipating and getting thru screens though. I think that's something that should come with more NBA experience.

2. He needs to pick up his rebounding numbers. When the Cavs had Drummond out there obviously he was hoovering all the boards but now the Cavs really do need more defensive rebounds from their wings esp since both Nance/Love have been out.

3. He should lock himself in the gym this summer and become a dependable knock down 3 pt shooter. He has shown he can do it but needs to be able to do it on a more consistent basis.
 
Okoro will be fine. He is a rookie and he was always more of a project than Sexton or Garland were. He's a real competitor and knows how to defend. The Cavs have had quite a bit of player development success...so the key thing to watch will be how he improves year to year. Liked how he played against the Sixers. Think the out of position argument is wildly overblown.
 
Really not a big fan of making doomsaying projections after a few months of play, especially given all the other craziness that went into this/last season for the young guys.

The number of players who looked like total scrubs as a rook then turned into studs in 2-3 years is innumerable in the NBA. I know someone is going to point out that most of those guys (Jimmy Butler for example), barely played minutes as a rookie. And you are right, but Jimmy was drafted in the late first. If he played Okoro's minutes as a rookie, he would've looked like trash and Bulls fans would've been trying to sell him for a 2nd rounder. Heck, I still think Jarrett Culver will be able to carve out a solid role in a few years...

Okoro has shown that he has It. His IQ is off the charts and we just need to give him the time to acclimate to the speed and feel of the NBA game. From all the interviews and stuff, he seems to be a super hard worker, so I have no doubts his all around game (on offense especially) will improve in the next few years. I've posted this in here before, but I am really excited to see him make all you doubters eat crow.
 
What is really odd is that some players have a few months or years to prove their value and some have a couple minutes or a couple games. I just have to SMH.
 
Right and right. Failing to get the defensive rebound is not as bad when you no longer have to defend for another 24 seconds, but there are still a lot of times where the Cavs forced a miss on a 2-point shot, don't get the rebound, and the opponent hits a 3. In that case failing to secure the rebound cost 3 points.

Team rebounding is more important than in the past because of more long rebounds as you said, which is why it's not good to have starting forwards who play 33 minutes and get one rebound.
Again I’m old school.....all rebounds count! Especially “defensive” rebounds! You can’t give opponents second and third scoring opportunities. If you get out rebounded in a game (especially on the defensive end) you are going to lose more than 90% of your games!
 
What is really odd is that some players have a few months or years to prove their value and some have a couple minutes or a couple games. I just have to SMH.
A big part of it is how much draft capital thry invested on the player.... Its just the way it is....
 
Again I’m old school.....all rebounds count! Especially “defensive” rebounds! You can’t give opponents second and third scoring opportunities. If you get out rebounded in a game (especially on the defensive end) you are going to lose more than 90% of your games!

During that 10 game losing steak we lost the rebounding edge in 7 of the games. So i think 90% is extreme. And only 2 of those 7 games did we get blown out in rebounding.

Is team rebounding important, yes, but as people have stated on this board okoro is usually guarding guys out on the perimeter. Is it an area he can improve on? yes, but he's a rookie wing that needs time to develop.

I'd say turnovers are a bigger weakness for this team which is because we don't have a true backup pg that can put people in a better place to succeed. okoro is good with off ball movement which we've seen little utilization of.

As long as we see continued development and becoming more aggressive then I would call that a foundation for a rookie to build on.
 
Again I’m old school.....all rebounds count! Especially “defensive” rebounds! You can’t give opponents second and third scoring opportunities. If you get out rebounded in a game (especially on the defensive end) you are going to lose more than 90% of your games!
No, you won't. Rebounding does not determine over 90% of games. Shooting is more important, and avoiding turnovers and getting to the FT line also matter a lot.
 

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Video

Episode 3-13: "Backup Bash Brothers"

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Spotify

Episode 3:11: "Clipping Bucks."
Top