The Cavs need to avoid Jarrett Allen-Andre Drummond lineups

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a big first world problem on their hands. That being too many quality starting big men and not enough time to give them all their individual time to shine. This is most blatant when looking at Jarrett Allen and Andre Drummond.

Both Allen and Drummond are starting quality big men and on paper, it makes the most sense to play your best players as much as you possibly can, even if that means they share the court together.

This is not the case with Drummond and Allen. When they are on the court together, it’s not going to bode well for Cleveland.

This is not a knock on either player, there are just too many redundancies in lineups that feature both Allen and Drummond in the frontcourt.

Both would have been the model big man to build a team around in former eras of the NBA. They are both extremely efficient around the rim, are great rebounders, and are excellent interior defenders. However, when they are on the court together they just seem to get in each other’s way.

Simply put, the Cavs need to avoid Allen-Drummond lineups.

Currently, they have a net rating of minus-55.2 when they are on the court together, per NBA.com’s two-man lineup data. That’s well….not ideal.

Along with this, when they are both on the floor, the Cavs have an effective field goal percentage of 38.6 percent, which indicates how with these two 5’s on the floor at the same time, there’s little-to-no spacing for other Cavs, such as Collin Sexton, Darius Garland and others.

Allen turned heads in his first career start with the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday with Drummond out in the second leg of back-to-back versus the Minnesota Timberwolves due to lower back soreness. In their matchup against the Timberwolves then, Allen finished the game with 23 points on seven-of-nine shooting, to go with 18 rebounds, and five blocks.

To compare, Drummond is averaging 18.2 points, 14.6 rebounds (which has led the league thus far), and 1.4 blocks a game.

Anyhow, it is obvious that the two are too talented to spend a substantial amount of time on the bench, albeit there two-man combination hasn’t played much together, in fairness.

This has led to there being rumors/reports that the Cavaliers could very well be looking to trade Drummond off of the team by the March 25 deadline. And for more on those rumors/reports involving Drummond, and Kevin Love, seemingly a perpetual subject of trade rumors, you can view those here and also here.

Although it is possible that the Cavaliers could hold onto Drummond through the season, and still manage to get both Allen and Drummond enough minutes for their impact to be felt on the game.

And in that realm, Kevin Love, who will be difficult to trade this season, anyway, is on track to return soon it appears (right calf strain/reaggravation), per a Cavs team status update on Wednesday on how he’s begun individual basketball activities. So that should help stagger minutes in a way that Drummond and Allen could be with him in the frontcourt for stretches, and to reiterate, they haven’t played much together, anyway, but it is obvious that they shouldn’t at all from here.

Plus, hopefully, Larry Nance Jr. can be healthier fairly soon, regarding his right wrist sprain, as his presence at the 4, like Love, could be much more viable alongside either Drummond or Allen.

Moreover, even sans Love and Nance, the Cavs need to avoid Allen-Drummond lineups at all costs, and instead find ways to get production at the 4. Putting Taurean Prince there a fair amount, of which they’ve done, is smarter and/or Cedi Osman some.

The key is, playing their full complement of wings a considerable amount instead in varying lineups makes more sense in games without Love/Nance in the mean time, while of course letting Darius Garland and Collin Sexton get their looks.