Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 bold predictions for 2019-20 NBA season

2. A Cavs player will win a major award

While it doesn’t appear there are any serious MVP candidates on the Cavs roster, let’s step out on a limb and say a Cavs player will win a major award at the end of the season.

The most obvious candidate to earn some hardware is rookie Darius Garland. The top-five pick is a ball-dominant player who Coach Beilein will likely gift plenty of playing time. While Zion Williamson is the heavy favorite for the honor, he plays on a roster with more mouths to feed.

Ja Morant may be slowed down by the Memphis Grizzlies historically patient offense and RJ Barrett plays in New York, a bit of a dead zone for high picks. This could be Garland’s honor to lose.

Some prognosticate that Garland will start with Sexton morphing into a Lou Williams-like bench player.

If that’s the case, the Sixth Man of the Year honor is certainly in reach. Sexton averaged 16.7 points per game while playing 31.8 minutes a contest last year.

He primarily competed against opponents’ top guards, the Kemba Walkers and Kyrie Irvings of the NBA. Those numbers were slightly better than Eric Gordon and Jamal Crawford‘s output when they won the award a few years back. And they competed against more backup guards than Sexton.