“I think he’d be great for the future, but, I don’t even know if he wants it,” Love said. “He knows that I have his back and I think a lot of the guys have his back.” Nance said: “I think we’ve made pretty awesome strides and I think everyone would kind of agree with that, that we’ve made awesome strides. I’m a Larry Drew fan.” And Sexton: “He’s done a tremendous job with us.” The Cavs’ front office would agree. This team, with a massive amount of injuries and a roster that is sure to change dramatically over the next two years, hung together and improved under Drew. He’ll surely be thanked for his efforts, and, he’ll receive the buyout he publicly shamed the organization into giving him when Tyronn Lue was fired and Drew was named his replacement.
Collin Sexton Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: G
Born: 01/04/99
Height: 6-2 / 1.88
Weight:185 lbs. / 83.9 kg.
Salary: $4,073,760
Born: 01/04/99
Height: 6-2 / 1.88
Weight:185 lbs. / 83.9 kg.
Salary: $4,073,760
So after all the watching, all the work behind the scenes, and all the wondering when he might just get the chance to get back to wearing a uniform and bouncing a ball, instead of looking at someone else do it, Knight wasn’t asking for much when he joined the Cavs. Knight, now 27, wasn’t demanding to start, even though he knew he was headed to one of the NBA’s worst teams. Nor was he thinking of mentoring the Cavs’ rookie starter, Collin Sexton. Not that he was opposed to either, it’s just, well, Knight needed the chance to restart his own career before he could ask more of the Cavs or help someone else get his career on track. What’s happened, then, is fairly remarkable. Knight’s been able to do it all.
But Knight can help Sexton (and has) in another way. Knight, like Sexton is now, was a 20-year-old starter as a rookie. The life and the pressure Sexton feels now, the mistakes he makes now, Knight felt it and made them when he was Sexton’s age. “I don’t know what the process was before I got here … I do know since I’ve gotten here I try to talk to him as much as I can,” Knight said. “I see myself a lot in him as a young guard having vets around me, having to learn when to score and when not to score, trying to use my speed but also trying to slow down. There’s a lot of things I had to deal with. So when I see him do certain things I’m like, ‘Man, I used to do that.’ ”
Chris Fedor: Six straight 20-point games for #Cavs rookie Collin Sexton. Kyrie Irving’s longest rookie streak was five. LeBron’s was four. I’m pretty sure Austin Carr’s was six.
Given Collin Sexton’s recent scoring binge, hitting the 20-point mark in five consecutive games — a feat not even reached by LeBron James during his rookie season — head coach Larry Drew’s “score-first point guard” label seems fitting. It’s also one that Sexton doesn’t mind. “I’m OK with it,” Sexton told cleveland.com. “But when it’s time for me to get into facilitating mode and I see Kevin (Love) and a few others haven’t touched the ball in a long time, have to make sure that I turn my scoring off and make sure I get them involved because we go as far as Kevin takes us. If Kevin is scoring then they have to play him and it opens up so much for everybody else.”
Veteran Channing Frye, who has been trying to mentor Sexton this season, agrees with Drew’s assessment. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” veteran Channing Frye said. “There’s only three or four pass-first guards in this league. For us it’s adjusting to that. For me, I played with a lot of pass-first guards and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. What (Collin) needs to do is understand that he is going to get around 20 shots a game. So listen, you don’t need to get all 20 in the first quarter, big fella. At the beginning, get your teammates involved and it’s going to make your job easier. If everyone’s focused on you, five people can guard one. If he’s guarded one-on-one, he’s pretty dang good. Just learning and evolving. At Alabama, ‘Here’s the ball, go win us the game.’ High school, ‘Here’s the ball, go win us the game.’ Now it’s like you’ve got some All-Stars, you’ve got some really good players. You’ve got to get them involved early, you’ve got to feed ‘em a little bit. Give ‘em a slice of the burger.”
