Every in-house player that could start at small forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers

Cedi Osman

Cedi Osman is the perfect player for the Cleveland Cavaliers’ starting small forward job, in theory. At one point he was seen as a future piece of the team, playing 32 minutes per game but now head coach J.B. Bickerstaff is playing him just 20 minutes a game if he plays at all.

This is despite the fact that he posted his best field goal percentage since his rookie year, (45%), and his second-best three-point shooting percentage (37%). Despite the fact, he’s a prototypical point-forward with great court vision and has a good defense.

His offensive box plus-minus isn’t great, -0.8 but his offensive RAPTOR score is a +0.2. This makes sense when you realize that Osman is a bulk player, and can have long stretches of bad shooting. Yet, when he’s on, he’s really on.

Defensively, Osman is a very solid player. Not on Isaac Okoro’s level, but very good. He posed a defensive box plus-minus of +0.2 while posting a defensive RAPTOR of +.0.6.

Offensively, he was a better and more consistent option than Caris LeVert and defensively LeVert held a barely minor edge. So clearly Osman is either a better player than Bickerstaff wants to admit, or LeVert is as bad as Osman.