Does Isaac Okoro Bring an UNTAPPED POTENTIAL to the Chicago Bulls?

Does Isaac Okoro Bring an UNTAPPED POTENTIAL to the Chicago Bulls?

I’ll sell you. I’ll try to sell you from from be your angle. Okay. My first pitch would be this. Uh Isaac Aoro, while not a stat sheet stuffer necessarily, has shown steady improvement year-over-year. Um last year, despite the minutes and the usage shrinking after getting that payday prior to his injury at the end of the calendar year last year, he was one of the top two three-point shooters in the league. He was just under 50% before that shoulder injury happened. Now, the numbers, they calmed down after that, but season over season, uh, he’s gotten better in that area, and that certainly when they drafted him, the focus was, okay, defensively, they expected him to be an immediate impact player, but the offense was super raw. I think the the issue in Cleveland that perhaps does not exist in Chicago is largely opportunity. Um, in an environment of Cleveland where you have a bunch of people offensively who are going to be prioritized, I think the biggest criticism of Isaac would be that he wasn’t guarded when it would matter from outside the arc despite what the percentages would indicate and that he wasn’t the most assertive player offensively. I think it’s a better environment for him to be in in terms of Chicago for perhaps empowering him to be a little bit more aggressive in looking for his own. The second thing I would say is Isaac Aoro was one of the players on our roster who thrived in transition. Now our pace was greater last year, but in previous iterations under the bigger staff Cavs, that was largely wasted uh with Isaac. I believe I don’t think that’s the case in Chicago. I think you’re much more capable team of running up tempo. Uh and I do believe you’ll see better results from Isaac. In terms of contractually, I think it definitely benefited the Cavs uh to acquire Lonzo for multiple reasons. One is their hopes that he can stay healthy and be on the court. Um but secondly, they were in a much worse situation to be able to commit $11 million to Isaac Aoro in the second apron crunch that they’re in. Chicago being in the phase of, you know, their build, their rebuild, however you want to deem it, uh, it’s it’s less critical for them to extract maximum value out of that $11 million in a way that Cleveland to to sign a guy to the biggest contract he’s been on and then immediately play him the least amount of minutes that he had in his entire career, it was a trend going in the wrong direction. So, I don’t think Chicago has those issues necessarily. One of the thing you said was he how passive he was on the offensive end as far as when it came to shooting. Could you go into that a little more like what was what was the reason kind of behind him being that passive especially on that end when you can show those stats where yeah he would he started hitting his threes a little bit more but then just not being assertive in that way. Yeah. I think I think that’s a problem that’s not limited to just Isaac on the Cavs roster. You you get a team that has guys like Dean and Isaac Aoro and if you were to look at the stats, you’d say, “Okay, those are reasonably decent, at least average three-point shooters.” And Isaac’s numbers would believe make you believe that. I mean, the fact that he was high 40% for the first half of the season was great, but couple of qualifiers there. The Cavs as a team were had their best offensive season in forever, and they had multiple guys up and down the roster. you know, their top six, seven guys all flirting with higher than 40% three-point shooting or just below it. So, there was there was some qualifying there of saying, okay, the system is giving him the opportunity to make more of these. But, I I think the issue with Isaac and all these guys has been, you know, will they take the shots when they’re open and they get it or or will they defer despite possibly having the best look? Now, there’s been moments the gamewinner Aoro hit two seasons ago against Brooklyn. Although even in that situation, it was a scramble at the end, a loose ball. Levert throws it to the corner. He had no choice but to put it up. And that was a massive moment because there was a huge storyline heading into last season, not this past season where he signed the extension. Um, but the one before that about how much work Isaac had put into his outside shot. and not necessarily just catch and shoot, but you know, catch, reposition, put it up, like the the types of things where he’ll never be deemed as a a movement shooter, I don’t think. But to be able to do even a little bit more than just camp out in the corner is something that everybody wanted to see from Isaac in terms of above the break stuff. And I do think you saw pretty reasonable results. The issue has always been volume. Uh because you can be a 40% three-point shooter, but if you’re barely putting them up, guys are going to take those chances cuz even on a night where you go two for three from outside the arc, where you go three for five, it’s just it’s not a big enough quantity that it’s going to hurt the other team. Um I do think Isaac in transition, that’s kind of really where I feel like he’s at his best because he doesn’t overthink it. Um he has kind of a nice euro step and the fact that he has some bulk to him allows him to, you know, put his body into people and convert a lot of those looks in transition. He can make good reads going downhill. I don’t think that that’s as much of a problem. The fact is though, he just doesn’t have the ball in his hands a lot in terms of initiating. U but that’s been a problem for a lot of the role players for the Cavs. I think that there needs to be some focus on the fact that the shoulder injury took him a long time to kind of overcome in terms of the shots in the immediate aftermath of when he returned. Like if you look at the I went to the Oklahoma City game where the Cavs got the doors kicked in and that was maybe Isaac’s worst three-point shooting game of the season, but he was fresh off an injury. The optimistic part of that was that he put up eight three-point attempts. only hit one of them. It hit the side of the backboard on one of them. It wasn’t it wasn’t at that moment, but it was the fact that he put that many up because they were giving him the looks, which is really all you can ask for in a guy who you’re still trying to develop and you’re trying to make at least an offensive component that you have to respect. You don’t have to fear him necessarily, but you can’t have people sagging off of him in the playoffs and clogging up the lane because if you guys watch the Cavs playoffs this year, it’s just Donovan throwing himself into a wall of people at the rim again and again and again. And that’s not a sustainable pattern. Uh if you’re hoping for success and it was not reminiscent of anything that they saw with the Kenny Atinson offense in the regular season, it devolved into far too much, you know, hero mode, Donovan Mitchell in the playoffs. It’s interesting you mention victim of circumstances, Bob, because that’s what Bulls fans have been talking about with Patrick Williams, you know, taking one spot before Isaac Aoro in the 2020 draft. I’m curious though if you see a higher ceiling, not untapped offensive potential, we know the weaknesses of Cororo’s game, but of him tr turning into a truly elite defensive player, like getting legit votes for all defensive teams in future seasons kind of player. Yeah. I mean, I think my feeling has always been that Aoro is a fantastic defender and especially if I don’t love it as much when he’s been forced into these situations where he has to guard up, but in the matchups against, you know, the Damen Lillards, the Trey Young’s, the the guards, that’s where I think he can really shine. So in a situation where he’s able to log significant minutes as a two more so than a three and guarding those elite kind of shifty guards, not necessarily the taller like to get these match ups in the playoffs against Tatum and Paulo Beno for as good as Isaac is, for as stout as he is, for as strong as he is, I don’t think those do him any favors because the one complaint I have, and of course I’m sure any Cav fan, any home team fan would say this of their own player, I think Isaac is very fundamentally sound defensively. I do not think he’s given the same leash from a referee perspective of guys like Alex Caruso and Drew Holiday when it comes to physicality. Now, if he if if that turned the corner, if he got the respect as a truly elite defender, which I think maybe only will come with extended minutes on the court, um then I I I think he can be one of the best point of attack defenders in the league. I think that’s possible.

The CHGO Bulls crew are joined by Bob Schmidt from the Fear the Fro podcast after the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers swapped Lonzo Ball for Isaac Okoro. What can Okoro bring to the table for the Bulls? Does he have an untapped potential the Cavs weren’t able to find? Does Okoro’s skill set overlap too much with Patrick Williams? Can he set up Josh Giddey for success?

#nba #chicagobulls #clevelandcavaliers #isaacokoro