Season Preview: Collin Sexton Rant

 Why the fuck is Collin Sexton not valued by the NBA broadly?  I don’t understand this, to the point where I only want to rant about it anymore, so rant I shall.

Same age comparison (actually Sexton is 4 months younger here)

Sexton’s 2nd and 3rd year averages vs Player X

MPG 

Sexton:  34.1

PlayerX:  33.8

PPG

Sexton: 22.5

PlayerX: 22.7

APG

Sexton: 3.6

PlayerX: 4.0

TOs

Sexton: 2.7

PlayerX: 2.6

TS

Sexton: 56.7%

PlayerX: 54.5%

FTr 

Sexton: .297

PlayerX: .240

No suspense:  Player X is Donovan Mitchell’s first two seasons in the league, and here we live in a world where the discussions are should the Knicks give up 5, 6 or 7 1st round picks for Mitchell and should Sexton be a 6th man or a starter.  

Don’t give me this ‘Mitchell’s a winner, Sexton was good stats on a bad team’ garbage either.  Portland just gave Simons a 4/100 deal.  They were 13-17 in his starts (25-32 in all games played) on a team that was built to win this year with Dame, including a dozen games starting next to CJ McCollum, 20+ next to Powell and a reasonable cast of role players.  

Now Simons did put up a nice 27 game stretch where he averaged 23.5/5.5 on 60% TS, of course Collin put up a 60 game stretch of 24.3 /4.4 on 57% TS at the same age (Sexton ~6 months older) and had a 31 game stretch of 25.1 /4.8 on 57% TS.

I could go on- so I will- Sexton’s age 22 season was better than any of Beal’s first four seasons, and comparable to his first all star season in year 6 (year 5 Beal beats Sexton hands down), and Beal got a 4/96 deal under a smaller cap.  

The only player that jumps to mind who got this level of disrespect after scoring at these levels at that age was Isaiah Thomas who eventually got a 4/28 deal as an RFA and turned years 2 and 3 of that deal into all-star selections.  

What is really irksome is this perception that ‘great stats on a bad team’ thing is common and obviously Sexton belongs in that group, so I ran the search- all seasons for players 6’3 and under who scored 20+ ppg on 55% TS anytime in their first 4 seasons in the league.  Sexton has 2 seasons that qualify out of the 30 total, spread across 19 different players.  Sexton’t seasons are the bottom 2 in WS, but his sophomore season comes in at the 2nd youngest, behind only Kyrie Irving’s sophomore season (fun fact Cleveland is the most represented team on the list with 3 players and 5 seasons between Irving, Sexton and Garland) and his age 22 season is the 8th youngest on the list.  Which of these names is bad company to be in?

The Jordan Clarkson comparison.  He’s a 6th man, off the bench spark plug, like Jordan Clarkson.  Sexton averaged 26 pp100 as a 20 year old rookie, Clarkson didn’t break 23 pp100 until he was 25.  Sexton averaged 34 pp/100 in his 3rd year, Clarkson has not matched that in 8 seasons in the league with only 1 year coming close- his age 28 season.  Clarkson has 1 season- ONE!- out of 8 where he bested Sexton’s average TS mark so far.  The same statements hold for Jamal Crawford (who started ~400 games before becoming a 6th man at 29 on a 53 win team), who never made it to even 31 pp100 in 19 seasons, and was less efficient as a scorer on that volume for most of his career.

Sexton is still very young, he is 28 days too old to have been classified as a 19 year old freshman.  He is 6 months younger than half his draft class- guys like SGA, Miles Bridges, and Michael Porter Jr and he is being treated as a finished product.  Any noticeable improvement from year 3 to 4 would have put him in the conversation for all-star selection last year, as he would have been matching or bettering numbers from Lavine, Middleton, VanVleet, Ball or Garland.  That a 24 year old on an All-Star track prior to a (recoverable) injury is still hanging out in restricted free agency for want of a decent offer shows a serious blind spot in this league toward recency bias and height.  

Sexton should still be considered in the ‘potential all-star’ class of young players, but what should/will his contributions look like this season?  Through three seasons Collin showed improved finishing at the rim getting up to 61% in year 3, and an increased FTr as well up to 0.347, a slower increase in 3PTa/100 and a 1 season jump in 2pt% from year 1 to 2 and flat year 3, and a 1 season jump in assists from year 2 to 3.  Taken together there are some signs that Sexton’s scoring/efficiency combination might be capping out at around 25 ppg or 35 pp/100 and in the 57-59% TS range, i.e. he might be able to score more on lower efficiency or he might be able to boost efficiency on lower volume but increasing both would be a very low percentage outcome.  His passing ceiling is unknown so far as passing can vary quite a lot.  For one extreme example DDR at 23 had 4 seasons in the league and a career high of 3.6 assists per 100, and through his age 27 season he had 8 years in the league including 3 all-star appearances and a career high of 5.8/100, and he peaked out (so far) at 10.0 per 100 with 4 seasons above 7.5 per 100.  Sexton’s 6.1/100 and 22% assist rate are higher than any of Derozan’s first 8 seasons in the league.  Jimmy Butler also didn’t break 6/100 until his age 26 season and peaked at 10.5 two seasons ago and has 4 seasons at 7.5+, Beal didn’t break 5/100 until his age 24 season (6.1) and put up 9.1 this past year, and Khris Middleton is coming off a season of 8/100 after spending his first 3 seasons at under 4/100 and a high of 5.9 in his first 6 seasons.  

This simply might not be available as an exploitable skill for Sexton this season, Garland finished the season at 12 assists/100, and was in the 13+ range for his last 37 games, and Rubio will eventually be back.  On the other hand the team is heavily built on off ball scorers and the 2nd unit is going to need a shot creator as well.  The additions of Ochai, Neto and Lopez don’t really shift that need either.  Until Rubio returns there will be space for a secondary creator who could be playing with multiple shooters (Love, Lauri, Neto, Ochai, Cedi, Wade) and a roll man (Mobley, Allen, Lopez), there will be opportunities for either Sexton or Levert to show their potential as passers.