Every year, people guess who the “bust” will be coming out of the draft. Sometimes, the term is applied appropriately (i.e. Darko Milicic.) More recently however, players are called busts earlier and earlier in their careers. One such player is Collin Sexton, who was a lottery pick, and had some unfair expectations put on him.
The College Year
At Alabama, Sexton was electric on the court. Every Alabama game was a must watch, even if only for Collin. I remember watching the Alabama-Texas A&M game on the drive back from spring break. Down one with 4.4 seconds left, Sexton took an inbound under his own basket, sprinted down the court, and hit a layup to win the game. This win put Alabama in the NCAA tournament, and win the first game. This hadn’t happened in over a decade at Bama. Oh, and Collin Sexton scored 25 points in the the first game to go with 6 assists. Collin Sexton could play, and the only downside was he fell in love with the three when he wasn’t a great shooter. Not surprisingly, he declared for the draft after his freshman year.
Sexton’s Struggles
On draft night, Collin Sexton went 8th to the Cleveland Cavaliers. This was the highest an Alabama player had been drafted in 23 years, when Antonio McDyess went 2nd overall to the Clippers. Being taken in the lottery, Sexton had some expectations on the post-Lebron Cavs. Early in the season, it did not look good. In his first 13 games, he was scoring 12 points on 40.9% shooting, while hitting 35.9% of his shots from behind the arc. He was also averaging 2.3 assists, with a game score of 6.48 over this span. Those aren’t horrible numbers, but people expected a lottery pick to fill up the box score. Last season, there also was a lot of talk that Cleveland could remain competitive with their core and a lottery pick. But how has he done since?
Improvement
Shockingly to some fans, rookies tend to improve as they get used to NBA life. In the 13 games since the ones I mentioned before, Sexton’s play has dramatically improved. Scoring 19.3 points on 47.6% shooting, with 35.3% from behind the arc, in addition to 3 assists and having a game score of 11.09. He has done this while shooting almost seven more shots a night, and one more three. Just the other night against the Wizards, he scored more than John Wall (who did have an off night, only scoring one point) and Bradley Beal who scored 27. Sexton scored 29, with 6 assists and 3 rebounds. Now, the Cavs are still bad. They have 6 wins on the season. Two of those came in the first 13 games, and 4 coming in the last 13. As Collin Sexton gets better, so do the Cavs.
What’s the point?
You might be wondering, “okay Kevin, why are you telling me about Collin Sexton?” I have two reasons for going in depth on Collin Sexton’s stats and figuring out his averages for his first 26 games. One: I love Collin Sexton and Alabama sports. Two, the real reason, is sometimes we can be a little premature with the word “bust.” I saw on twitter countless tweets saying how bad Collin Sexton is, and calling him a bust, like this one. My favorite though is this one from 10 days ago, making fun of Collin’s handle on twitter, @CollinYoungBull. My point is, 13 games into a career is way to early to label a “bust.” The same could also be said that 26 games into a career is too early to label someone “not a bust.” If in two years Sexton is awful and bouncing around the G-League, so be it. However, just wait and see how a kid develops before blasting him for being a bad pick.
