Cavs: Ranking every offseason move from worst to best

Cavs: Ranking every offseason move from worst to best – 1. Drafting Evan Mobley

Draft: No. 3 overall in the 2021 NBA Draft out of USC

The Cleveland Cavaliers rolled into the 2021 NBA Draft in a great position. They weren’t first overall, which would clearly have been best, but they haven’t always maximized that draft slot either. In a draft with at least three blue-chip prospects, picking third meant they would still add an elite prospect to the mix.

After Cade Cunningham and Jalen Green went first and second respectively, the Cavs were all-too-happy to select USC big man Evan Mobley with the No. 3 pick. After leading a ho-hum roster to the Elite Eight largely on his slim shoulders, he looks like the kind of player a team builds around, a foundational building-block for this franchise and their young roster.

Mobley is very thin, needing to put on muscle and pure weight to survive on the interior for an NBA season. Largely for that reason the Cavs plan to play him at the 4, which they did in NBA Summer League. He will most likely start alongside Jarrett Allen, giving the Cavs plenty of height and length in the frontcourt.

Long-term he will most likely be best deployed at center, and should play some minutes as Allen’s primary backup this year alongside Lauri Markkanen. The best-case scenario for Mobley involves a defensive monster who protects the rim and guards out in space, and a ball-handling offensive fulcrum who passes, score and shoots at decent levels.

The Cavs spent a lot of money and draft capital this offseason to beef up their big man rotation. If those players all develop it could work out, but for a team that desperately needs wings it was shocking to see the team merely bringing a flier like Denzel Valentine at the position. This is a rebuilding team that should be patient, investing long-term assets and upside plays at key positions, and keeping their cap sheet as clean as possible.

Instead, they overpaid Allen and Markkanen, have the league’s most expensive backup point guard and dropped their best veteran trade asset for basically nothing. Mobley looks like an elite prospect, but he will have the largest learning curve as the team gets his body ready for NBA games. He was not the player to take and start chasing the play-in tournament.

This will be an offseason defined by Mobley and his development. If he hits, then the overpays may not matter as much. Yet as so many teams have found, trying to rush the rebuild generally results in a capped ceiling. The Cavs might look back at the Summer of 2021 and wonder what they could have done differently.