Four young core players have options picked up by Cavaliers

The Cleveland CLEVELAND — Cavaliers have picked up contract options on four of their core players Collin

— Sexton, Darius Garland, Dylan Windler and Kevin Porter Jr. league sources

— tell cleveland.com.

It’s the fourth-year option on Sexton, the eighth pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, and third-year options on Garland, Windler and Porter - all selected in the first round in 2019.

Sexton, 21, will be extension eligible this summer. In his first two seasons, Sexton has averaged 18.5 points on 45.0% shooting and 39.2% from3-point range to gowith 3.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists while playing in every regular season game. Over the last five games of the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 campaign, Sexton tallied 30.0 points per game on 58.4% shooting, 4.6 assists, 3.6 rebounds and 1.6 steals.

Garland, the No. 5 pick in 2019, is entering his second year in the NBA. As a rookie, the 20-year-old point guard, started all 59 games he played, averaging 12.3

points and a team-best 3.9 assists.

Windlermissed all of 201920 because of surgery on his lower leg. He will make his NBAdebutWednesday night in Cleveland’s opener against the Charlotte Hornets.

After averaging 10 points

in 50 games as a rookie last season, Porter dealt with legal challenges the last few months, forcing him to miss a bulk of training camp and all four preseason games. Porter won’t play Wednesday night because of personal reasons and sources say there’s no official timeline for his 2020-21 debut.

The Cavs had until Dec. 29 to pick up the options.

Jelks is 7th woman to be full-time NBA ref

Simone Jelks was one of three referees promoted to full-time status by the NBA onWednesday, making her the fifth woman on the current lineup of officials.

Jelks joins the group of female NBA referees that also includes Lauren Holtkamp-Sterling, Ashley Moyer-Gleich, Natalie Sago and Jenna Schroeder. Jelks becomes the seventh female full-time ref in NBA history, with the current five preceded by Dee Kantner and Violet Palmer.

Jelks worked 16 regular-season NBA games as a non-staff official last season. The former USC player has also worked games in the G League for the last three seasons.

Suyash Mehta and Andy Nagywere also promoted to full-time Wednesday. They have a combined 11 years of G League experience and each worked 13 NBA games in non-staff roles last season.