Isaac Okoro: Facing a Prove It Year of his Cavaliers Career

When Cleveland Cavaliers selected 22-year-old Isaac Okoro at No. 5 in the 2020 NBA Draft they took him for his defensive prowess, and with little to no time the 6-foot 5 inches Atlanta born Nigerian was already showcasing how he could be that defensive stopper for the Cavaliers as he quickly went head-on at the challenge of guarding some of the NBA’s best.

This hasn’t changed in the three seasons Okoro has been in the league. On a nightly basis, Okoro has played an important role for the Cavs on the defensive end. He knows how to get through screens, deny opposing players the ball and keep his man in front of him. The Cavs even scored a defensive rating of 109.0. during the 2022-23 regular season— thanks to having Okoro on the floor.

In these past three seasons, Okoro has become pretty well known for his superb defensive nature, but along the line came that moment that was a sight for sore eyes from the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 116-114 win over the Brooklyn Nets, and all of a sudden the 22-year-old towering marvel provided a glimpse of what he can also do offensively in those pressure-filled moments.

As that moment of brilliance lived rent free in the minds of close watchers, an insatiable hunger for more also crept in. At the end of Okoro’s second season, when he averaged just 8.8 points per game, the Cavs started talking about wanting to “unleash” him offensively.

It was something he admired as well which wouldn’t have been too much to desire of himself. This new burning desire led to Okoro spending the offseason time with Cavs’ shooting coach Andrew Olson, honing his 3-point shot, as well as working on his ballhandling, shooting and finishing at the basket.

He also stated during preseason how he wanted to become more versatile— somewhat of a two-way player and be effective on both ends of the floor. Okoro hadn’t hid his feelings of wanting to use that offseason to work on becoming a better shooter, ballhandler, creator off the dribble, defender and rebounder.

We’ve seen him put up shows of being that better man like when he watched Caris LeVert corral the ball off a tipped pass from Jarrett Allen then moving to the corner, get to his spot and wait for LeVert who thought about shooting and now seeing him open in the corner threw him the ball. Okoro caught that pass, immediately took the 3 and then nailed the shot with 0.7 seconds left on the clock.

But while the Cavs kept fanning their sentiment to unlock Okoro, they suddenly pulled off a blockbuster summer trade over to land Donovan Mitchell and this suddenly changed their starting lineup. Okoro moved over to the wing as Mitchell to the backcourt with Darius Garland. Okoro then became one of six guys in the conversation during training camp and preseason for the starting small forward position.

He gets brought off the bench to start the season, but eventually gets moved into the starting lineup on January 4. He plays a total of 76 regular-season games, starting 46 of them. Okoro within this period also had to battle with a knee injury that caused him to miss the final six games of the regular season.

He then finished the regular season averaging a career-low 6.4 points per game while shooting 49.4 percent from the field and 36.3 percent from 3. Upon his return for the playoffs, he was inserted back into the starting lineup for the first two games of the series against the New York Knicks, however he was pulled from the starting lineup after Game 2 and was replaced by LeVert, who started the final three games of the series.

In 2021-22, Cleveland improved drastically. 44 game wins and only ending up in the play-in tournament. In this period Okoro started 61 of the 67 games he played, playing 29.4 minutes per game. Last year, in Donovan Mitchell’s first year when the Cavs finished with 55 wins, Okoro started 46 of the 76 games he played. He played 21.7 minutes per game. Although his minutes did drop to 14.9 per game in the playoffs.

The minutes drop point towards something about Okoro’s stay at the team. As the team got better, and needed more from its wings, his minutes decreased, meaning that as they got better in that area, they trusted him less and If he doesn’t sign an extension with Cleveland, he’ll hit restricted free agency in 2024.

He’s entering the last year of his four-year, $29 million, rookie contract and he’s currently extension eligible but currently there’s no signs that he and the Cavs are near a deal. Okoro on his primary part never looked over matched by the physicality of the playoffs like so many of his teammates did — maybe that carries over into this year and earns him a longer look because there is still a possible role for Okoro on the 2023-24 Cavs team.

They need his defensive presence on the court because the team is lacking scalable defenders and even if he’s ultra switchable, he can hang over multiple positions. He can provide cover for Mitchell and Darius Garland at the point of attack.

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