Cavs: 3 reasons why Evan Mobley, the team will be in hunt this season
By John Suchan
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been a struggling team over the past three seasons, that’s certainly not a mystery.
The team has been drafting players, mostly guards in that window including Darius Garland and Collin Sexton, and a wing in Isaac Okoro. They’ve also added a a couple nice big men in that time including players like Jarrett Allen (via trade), Lauri Markkanen (via sign-and-trade) and Dean Wade (undrafted free agency). But the biggest piece to the Cavs turning the corner on lousiness is their drafting of Evan Mobley, the 7-foot big out of USC.
The 2021-22 season is only a couple weeks away and the Cavaliers have begun preseason play and you can already see the effect of adding Mobley to the mix and why the Cavs have a much brighter future ahead. Let’s look a little closer as to why Mobley’s presence will accelerate the Wine and Gold returning to respectability.
Reason #3: The talent is there
When you draft a player like Mobley at #3 in this past NBA Draft, you are expecting big things and thus far he hasn’t disappointed. His minutes on the floor this preseason would certainly indicate to me that he’ll be a starter. His time on the floor so far has been impressive.
He’s establishing his presence in the paint already by swatting away multiple blocked shots. His perimeter defense too has been noticeably good. In one play against his opponent, he got out of position out on the wing but was able to close and knock away a shot because of his quick recovery and footwork; you can see that below on a shot from Alex Caruso.
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Not all big men have that skill set. For Mobley, he looks very smooth with his motions on both offense and defense.
Defense wins games and having Mobley in there now will be a huge factor in this team’s growth and progress.
Offensively, Mobley has a really good downhill approach to the rim when he gets the ball on the outside.
What I like about his game, while he’ll need to add strength to be more effective in post-up play against bigs, he’s not afraid to turn and face his opponent and aggressively go to the basket; his handle is key in that respect, too. Granted, he can back down smaller matchups, and his quick spin both left and right to the rim should regularly lead to success for him it seems.
His ability to roll to the rim off the ball has been notable too in a few of these preseason games already. His knowledge of the game and knowing when to set the high screen and then roll is very smooth.