How did Evan Mobley fall to Cavs in NBA Draft, not get taken at #1?

The perceived strength dilemma

Here was the well-documented NBA Draft critique regarding Mobley’s lack of strength, and how he could struggle early on defensively because of that, via Tyler Metcalf of Hashtag Basketball.

"“I fully expect Mobley to reach the levels of an All-NBA level defender, but he will struggle early in his career because of this lack of strength. As we can see below, Mobley gets buried under the basket by a fellow freshman.”"

Let’s just start out with the most universal criticism of Mobley, and I admit I criticized his strength as well. However, in the first quarter of the season, he hasn’t necessarily proven it wrong, but he has proven it might not matter.

In the Cavaliers third game of the year versus the Atlanta Hawks, Mobley faced off against two of the best younger big men in the NBA in Clint Capela and John Collins. This video shows all of Mobley’s highlights in the game, but I want to point out some special occurrences.

The first thing I want to point out, and this isn’t necessarily post defense, but at the 1:08 mark of the aforementioned video, Mobley closes out strongly on a wide-open John Collins, forcing him to miss short. That type of play just shows how incredibly versatile he is on defense. Also, it ended up being an easy layup for Mobley on the other end. Now let’s get to some more of his defensive work.

It’s still fair to say that in his young career, he needs to add weight and strength. Even still, that will come with time, and it’s not hurting his play much right now. He’s contesting 14.1 shots per game, which is good for first in the NBA, per NBA.com’s hustle data. On top of that, while he is slim, he uses that to his advantage on the defensive end. In last night’s historic win over the Miami Heat, the young man had his fourth game this season with at least four blocks. He is also very smart on the defensive end of the court.

Starting at the 1:20 minute mark in the referenced video, Trae Young forces his way into the paint, and throws up an errant floater. It misses badly. But notice Mobley is in the wrong position to rebound that shot, and he knows that. So most rookies and young players in that situation would foul immediately, or reach over the back for the rebound. As you can see Mobley lets Collins grab the rebound, but blocks his attempt when he goes to shoot. While it’s only a small blip on the radar of an NBA season, that maturity, and patience that Mobley has as a rookie is tremendous.

In the end Mobley will put on weight, it happens when you get older. With that being said, his supposed lack of strength isn’t impacting his play on the court much. On the defensive end, there might be only one or two games where you can criticize him this year, and that’s incredibly impressive for such a young man, playing a tough defensive position.