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.