Jarrett Allen has been on quite a tear for Cavs of late

It’s hard to overstate how important Jarrett Allen has been for the Cleveland Cavaliers this season. This past offseason, Allen was given a five-year, $100 million deal by the Cavs, and while there were other bigs involved with the team, Allen has proven to be well worth that.

This has been a career year through a quarter-plus of the season thus far, and to this point, he’s had 16.9 points, 11.4 rebounds (both career-highs) and 1.2 blocks per outing. His interior presence on both ends of the floor has been huge for the Cavaliers, and his finishing with authority and touch has been on display often.

His chemistry with Darius Garland has been truly on another level, too, and on the other end, Allen and Mobley have been quite a defensive duo; their contributions are a key reason why Cleveland has been so stout there.

Now, he has been very good throughout the season overall, by and large, but of late, Allen has been even more on-point. Since his return from a three-game absence due to illness (non-COVID-19-related), he’s had 22.3 points, 12.1 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per contest. 

Furthermore, Justin Kubatko, the founder of Basketball Reference, pointed out how Allen’s recent five-game stretch of games had been quite the tear for him, too; this doesn’t include his production in Cleveland’s close loss on Sunday to the Utah Jazz. Kubatko stressed how Allen’s five-game splits prior to that though had him in-line with Dwight Howard in 2007, Rudy Gobert in 2019 and Wilt Chamberlain, regarding the 70 percent shooting threshold; that’s not too shabby.

Allen has had a great season for the Cavs, but has been even better since his return.

As the aforementioned Kubatko tweeted out, that five-game stretch for Allen put him in pretty elite company, as Howard during that point in his career was on the fast track to stardom with the Orlando Magic, and Gobert is one of the game’s best centers. And all basketball fans know all too well, Wilt is one of the most dominant players in NBA history.

Needless to say, Allen has been playing outstanding basketball for the Wine and Gold, and he’s amid a career year, as Cavaliers fans can attest.

Now, these stats via Kubatko’s tweet didn’t factor in Allen’s production from the Cavs’ narrow loss to the Jazz on Sunday, as we alluded to. The tweet and that run from Jarrett are still something else, however, and just watching what the big man has been doing since he’s come back from illness, as our Amadou Sow expressed, he has a more than legitimate All-Star case.

He wasn’t dominant on Sunday, as he had been, but matched up often against Gobert was no small task offensively, but he still end up with 17 points, 11 rebounds, to go three blocks and two steals.

Overall, anyway, Allen has largely been phenomonal at what he does inside as a roller, lob threat, and cutter, and he’s shown tangible growth as a low-post player, where his footwork has led to plenty of easy looks throughout contests.

As we also hit on, his defense has been great as a rim protector/shot alterer for this Cleveland team, and his effort on closeouts to perimeter shooters at times as a rotator has helped the team defense to some degree as well. And while the rebounding from him has been a constant, realistically, in this seven-game stretch, he’s taken even that up a notch, and it’s helped the Wine and Gold immensely and boosted his season splits.

Moreover, even though we won’t see this kind of production from Allen for elongated stretches of games, one wouldn’t think, he has still been so consistent for the Cavaliers this season, and that I’d expect to see moving forward.

The dude is still just 23, and it’s been a joy to see him show such stark improvement this season, and establish himself as more of an offensive threat, thanks to terrific touch and footwork, to go with his authority and athleticism inside.