Tag: Kevin Love

Collin Sexton takes another step towards NBA stardom

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Miami Heat with a final score of 100-124 to have a record of 4-10 to start the season. While their record may not be all that great, one player is continuing to grow into what may be the next young star. Former …

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost to the Miami Heat with a final score of 100-124 to have a record of 4-10 to start the season.

While their record may not be all that great, one player is continuing to grow into what may be the next young star.

Former Alabama guard Collin Sexton has been putting up solid numbers in the wins and the losses.

In the loss against Miami, Sexton had 19 points and two rebounds.

So far in the 14 games played in the 2019 – 2020 season, Sexton averages 18 points per game, two assists, three rebounds and a field goal percentage of just over 44 percent.

While his name may be hidden due to the Cavaliers’ poor performances or drowned out because of the many young stars all over the league, his talent has not gone unrecognized within the organization.

Cavaliers head coach John Beilein claims that Sexton is developing into something special.

“He’s learning how to play. He’s 20 years old. He’s playing against some really good players every single day. We’re hoping that he grows daily to just be a really good backcourt player,” says Beilein, “I think last year, probably a scorer who could play point guard, but if he can ever get to be able to do both, have the mentality either way, that’s a special player.”

David Zavac, of “Fear The Sword,” argues that Sexton has the “strength and athleticism” to be a difference maker on this Cleveland team.

Zavac argues that with Sexton’s continued growth, he could be a new key play-maker on the team not named Kevin Love or Tristan Thompson.

There is plenty of time left in Sexton’s sophomore season to show signs of strong improvement, and even establish a presence on the national level across the league.

Even if the 2019-2020 season is only a small stepping stone in the right direction to what will hopefully become a long and successful career in the NBA.

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LeBron’s passing is up and Davis is getting more passes than LeBron’s past running mates

L.A. Lakers star LeBron James is leading the NBA in assists and Anthony Davis is receiving more passes than any of his previous teammates.

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It might seem obvious considering that he’s leading the NBA in assists for the first time in his historic 17-year career, but LeBron James is passing the ball more than he has before in his career. And to add to that, nobody in LeBron’s history of past teammates received more passes on a nightly basis than Anthony Davis currently does next to The King.

Bryan Kalbrosky dug into the numbers for HoopsHype earlier on Monday and discovered that Davis is receiving 25.2 passes per 36 minutes from LeBron James. That’s the highest average of any LeBron teammate since that data has become available on NBA.com.

Obviously, it’s still early in the season, so this could change slightly but Davis looks well on his way to surpassing Kyrie Irving’s high mark of 22.3 passes per 36 minutes in 2015-16.

If things continue going the way they are, even Kyle Kuzma could pass Irving’s high mark as well. Davis has been a well of assists for LeBron and that doesn’t figure to change anytime soon, but there are also a couple of other aspects at play when looking at this passing increase.

First of all, LeBron is playing point guard more than he ever has because of injuries and the Lakers general lack of point guard depth. Second, the pace of play (possessions per game) has been steadily increasing over the last five years which of course leads to a higher volume of shots and passes.

Still, the stat that Kalbrosky dug into indicates a big reason why LeBron is leading the NBA assists. Even though Davis hasn’t been his normally efficient self, he won’t be short on opportunities as long as he and LeBron stay on the court.

LeBron James passing to Anthony Davis more than any previous teammate

It didn’t take long for LeBron James and Anthony Davis to develop chemistry and get on the same page, and the numbers back that up.

After a disappointing first year on the Los Angeles Lakers for LeBron James, his team is off to a very impressive start so far this season.

Whether it is because he played the first 10 games of the season without point guard Rajon Rondo or because James has decided to run the offense through new superstar teammate Anthony Davis, James’ assist numbers are now at an all-time high.

James leads the league with 11.2 assists per game and an assist percentage of 52.4 percent. One of the reasons is that he is simply passing the ball far more often.

James has made 68.3 passes per game, the third-most in the NBA behind only Luka Doncic (70.6) and Ben Simmons (69.6) thus far. It’s significantly more passes than any of his other seasons since the statistics were made publicly available in 2013-14.

According to the available tracking data, 23.4 percent of his passes have been to Davis. James has averaged 2.5 assists per game to Davis, establishing a far better rhythm than any he has ever had with a big man.

Brian Windhorst recently wrote about the immediate chemistry that the two stars have displayed (via ESPN):

“Through their first nine games, James had assisted Davis on 26 baskets, 10 more than any other teammate, per ESPN Stats & Information research. Compare that to his first nine games with [Chris] Bosh, when it was 17 assists, and his first nine with [Kevin] Love, which produced only 11. Their pick-and-rolls have resulted in the highlight dunks that fans love and a schematic nightmare for opposing coaches. And even though they sometimes are caught a little out of position, there’s a natural flow that’s easy to see.”

Now after more than a dozen regular-season games together, the tracking data indicates that James has targeted Davis more often than any of his other teammates since 2013-14.

When dividing the minutes they have shared the court by 36, James is averaging more than 25 passes to Davis. That is the most since he averaged 22.3 passes per 36 shared to Kyrie Irving during their 2015-16 campaign, which ultimately resulted in an NBA championship.

For perspective: James averaged 16.9 passes per 36 minutes shared to Kevin Love during his final season in Cleveland and just 12.6 passes per 36 minutes shared to Dwyane Wade during his last year in Miami.

It is also worth noting that given how many more passes per game James is averaging overall this year, James is still able to find other teammates beyond Davis at a remarkably high rate as well.

While it is still a smaller sample size as he missed time to start the season due to injury, Kyle Kuzma has received 2.1 assists per game from James and that is without the forward even being in the starting unit with the four-time NBA MVP.

The new mindset for James is evident in more than just the eye test, showing his willingness to defer. The stats back up exactly how much of a playmaker he has been for Los Angeles thus far.

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Kevin Love has praise for Sixers’ Ben Simmons: ‘Pretty devastating’

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love has high praise for Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons.

Philadelphia 76ers guard Ben Simmons is a polarizing figure. He’s a uniquely talented player who can do it all on the basketball court, but he receives criticism for his lack of a jump shot and for not being aggressive enough.

On Sunday, Simmons had 10 points and 11 assists in a 114-95 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers and he did a solid job on the defensive end of the floor. He and fellow All-Star Joel Embiid worked the pick-and-roll game well and it was tough for the Cavs to stop.

Simmons’ play earned him high praise form Cavs star Kevin Love as he stated:

He does, especially when you try and have cross matchups against him you try to show him different defenders, but he poses different problems for different guys. Especially in transition, he is pretty devastating when he comes off that pick and roll he might throw it to Joel, and Joel will find him on the duck in being a willing passer. So he just creates a lot of mismatches and different places on the floor he can be really effective.

There’s a reason why Simmons has the accolades he has received in his career along with the respect from his peers and his teammates. He is not going to score 30+ every night like Kobe Bryant or something, he’s going to give you a little bit of everything on both ends of the floor. [lawrence-related id=19412,19383,19377]

LeBron James says it’s not that weird playing an injured Warriors team

The Los Angeles Lakers star also eluded to his 2015 NBA Finals when he played the Warriors without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.

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LeBron James doesn’t think it’s all that weird to play a Golden State Warriors team without both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, but he did acknowledge when he’s watching them on TV the absence of the Splash Brothers is a lot more jarring.

After last night’s comfortable 120-94 win over the Warriors on Wednesday night, James was asked about the state of the Warriors as they fell to a league-worst 2-10 record. LeBron obviously knows what they’re going through, but he wouldn’t use the word “weird” to describe the feeling of playing against a deleted Warriors squad, because he’s been used to playing them with a depleted unit before in the 2015 NBA Finals without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.

Video from Kyle Goon of the Southern California News Group

Irving played only one game in the 2015 Finals before suffering a broken kneecap in the first game of the series. Obviously James is still a little salty about that Finals run and who could blame him, as he pushed the Warriors to six games with Matthew Dellavadov and Timofey Mozgov as his 2nd and 3rd options.

James had an incredible stat line in a losing effort in the 2015 Finals, averaging 35.8 points, 13.3 rebonds and 8.8 assists per game.