When the Cleveland Cavaliers chose Auburn forward Isaac Okoro with the fifth pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, they were coming off a 19-win season. In Okoro’s rookie season, the Cavs won 22 games.
But in his second season, Cleveland doubled that win total, then won 51 and reached the NBA playoffs for the first time in five years in Year 3. The Cavaliers lost in the first round that season, but last season, Cleveland advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The climb is one of the reasons that Okoro wanted to return to the Cavaliers after his contract expired at the end of the 2023-24 season.
“It’s important,” Okoro said on Monday. “Knowing that we already have that team chemistry already, it’s not something new that we have to do.”
Okoro averaged 9.4 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 69 games, with 42 starts, for Cleveland in the 2023-24 season, when he posted the best 3-point shooting rate of his career at 39.1 percent.
The Cavaliers made an $11.8 million qualifying offer to Okoro for the 2024-25 season, which designated him as a restricted free agent, giving Cleveland the opportunity to match any offer he might get from another team.
Okoro said he came “close” to signing the qualifying offer, which would have allowed him to become an unrestricted free agent next offseason. Instead, he explored his options and returned to the Cavaliers in September for a three-year, $38 million contract.
“It feels good,” Okoro said. “I mean, I always wanted to be back here. I always knew I was going to come back here. I love Cleveland, so it’s good. …
“I wouldn’t say it was as stressful as people thought it was. I would just say that I know what I can do. I know Cleveland wanted me, and I wanted to be here. I knew I was always going to be here at the end, and I was just focused on the basketball part of it and just working on myself to get better.”
RELATED: FORMER AUBURN STANDOUT SUBJECT OF FINAL ‘WOJ BOMB’
Okoro also said he fits Cleveland – not just the team, but the city.
“Cleveland, they’re all for you,” Okoro said. “All they want to do is see you just work hard, get on the court, hustle and have a hard-working mentality, so once I got into the league and they seen that and embraced that, that’s all I wanted.”
The Okoro signing was the last major piece of offseason business for the Cavaliers as they kept their core of young talent in the wine-and-gold.
“We wanted to keep our best players in town,” Cleveland general manager Koby Altman said on Friday. “We’re big proponents of continuity here in terms of the roster, giving this young group a chance to really succeed and give them a runway. And I think for us to build a lifeline of your core in this league, in this salary-cap structure, it’s hard to do. And so for us to have the chance to create the runway for this core was really successful and not easy, when you talk about bringing back a Donovan Mitchell, extending Jarrett Allen two years before he becomes unrestricted, signing Evan Mobley to five more years at 23 years old – even last summer when you talk about Darius Garland’s extension and then late in the summer Isaac Okoro. These are big, core pieces to the Cavaliers, and guys who really wanted to be here.”
Despite the Cavaliers’ improvement and focus on roster continuity, Cleveland changed coaches this offseason. After four seasons under J.B. Bickerstaff, the Cavaliers will be guided by Kenny Atkinson, a former Brooklyn Nets head coach who was a Golden State Warriors assistant last season.
“For us, the goal is always championships, especially with this group,” Altman said. “We want to win rounds of the playoffs, and that’s really difficult to do to finish in the final eight, or the elite eight, if you want to say of the NBA, which is huge for us, a big step for us, when you look at the age of the group and our success. But the next step of winning rounds of the playoffs is really difficult. To put yourself in that position, being healthy, having really successful regular seasons, which we believe is very important, is a part of it. We brought in Kenny to help us take that next step in a really competitive East in a tough league. But I think we’re right there with some of the best teams in the league.”
Okoro said Atkinson “gives guys confidence to go out there and play their game.”
“He’s a guy that tells you why he wants you to do something, not just tells you, ‘Just go out there and do this,’” Okoro said. “He gives you the explanation, gives you the reason why, and that’s what we need. …
“He knows how to communicate to his players. The minute I was signed, he just texted me, called me, told me how he sees me on the court.”
Okoro said the new coach “sees me as a cutter, a guy that’s able to handle the basketball, play-make, attack, close out and make the next reads.”
The Cavaliers tip off their four-game preseason schedule against the Chicago Bulls at 6 p.m. CDT Oct. 8 at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland.
The Cavaliers start the 2024-25 regular season with a road game against the Toronto Raptors at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 23.
Since he spends his games “guarding the best guys and shutting down the best guys,” Okoro has a defensive-minded individual goal for this season.
“I want to make an all-defensive team,” Okoro said. “I do think I am one of the best defenders in the league right now, so I do want to make an all-defensive team.”
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.