It’s safe to say I’ve been more than satisfied with the play of Cleveland Cavaliers rookie big Evan Mobley, who has looked to be a home run pick from the 2021 NBA Draft. Mobley, who was selected third overall this past summer, has been an impact contributor in every sense of the word through 12 games.
It’s early on in the season, sure; I’m not discounting what he’s done, though. Mobley has had 15.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.3 blocks per outing. His finishing touch, authority inside as a cutter/roller, and well-rounded defensive play has been huge for this Cavalier team.
It was hardly surprising that Mobley slotted in at #1 in the latest Kia NBA Rookie Ladder, as of Wednesday, as Mobley has been nothing short of a dynamite player for Cleveland, as our own Justin Brownlow detailed.
His play on both ends was on display on Wednesday, albeit in a close loss to the Washington Wizards, too. That one was a rough L where a few mistakes down the stretch, and some missed free throws hurt Cleveland, and I’m not excusing them conceding eight points to Washington in the last 26 seconds, but in this one, I was still impressed with Mobley. He had 19 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a block in 26 minutes on Wednesday.
It didn’t necessarily appear to be on track for a particularly great outing with the way things started, however, based on early foul trouble for him. Mobley, who was scoreless in the first quarter, had two personal fouls relatively quickly, but his play overall after that was solid, which was encouraging to see.
Cavs: How Mobley handled early foul trouble versus the Wizards was a nice sign.
Mobley has not been in foul trouble much to this point, as evidenced by him averaging 2.3 fouls per outing and 2.4 per-36 minutes. The verticality expertise from Mobley has been invaluable for the Cavaliers, and considering he’s led the league in contested shots per game at 15.5 (per NBA.com’s hustle data), for him to avoid foul trouble, mostly, has been crucial.
In this Washington game, he had that early foul trouble, though, and he played only 3:36 in the opening stanza. It did seem that this might be more of a forgettable one for Mobley, with that in mind. But he did end up flipping the script, largely, to ignite Cleveland in the second period.
In that second quarter, Mobley had 11 points in 8:43, and while Montrezl Harrell was a load for the Cavs interior defense on the other end, Mobley offensively finishing out with 19 points after those first quarter issues, in particular, was encouraging.
For a young player learning, there’s going to be instances where that will play out, that’s inevitable for a big, even as one as gifted as Mobley. It was just, generally, a nice response from Mobley to reassert himself and stay aggressive in some key stretches.
Cleveland didn’t close things out, and while I would’ve preferred Mobley to stay with Kyle Kuzma on the possession Washington went ahead, with him hot in the fourth, him coming to help on Bradley Beal was likely his natural inclination. That I believe will be a teachable moment, however, and Mobley will change things in that regard.
Overall, I thought his response to early foul trouble, though he ended out at a minus-11, was a positive from this one. He made some really nice plays offensively in the post, and of course, the free throw miss hurt, but his aggressiveness in mismatch situations was just one what would’ve been hoping for in those sequences.
This one hurts, sure; let’s just hope Mobley and the Cavaliers can move past it. I believe they very well will, too, and after some games, they should be able to get able to get more comfortable offensively regarding ball and man movement without Collin Sexton. They can figure this out with Garland, Rubio, and others, particularly when Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love return.