Cavs’ Evan Mobley holds strong atop Rookie Ladder, but what about #2?

Mobley’s been great, but there’s still room to improve

Listen, Evan Mobley has been a revelation this year for the Cavs. I will put my hand up and say I was disappointed when the big man from USC fell to them, as I was a huge Jalen Green fan. But it’s almost as if the Cavaliers and Mobley are playing with house money at this point, so any more improvement will be a nice little cherry on top of Mobley’s rookie season.

The 7-footer has been great for the Cavs, especially on defense. He’s sixth in the league with 1.7 blocks per game. Having he and Jarrett Allen in the paint when any opposing player is driving to the hoop is great. When a shot misses, is when Mobley is most vulnerable. His first major improvement in my opinion, needs to be rebounding.

Yes, he’s averaging nearly eight per game, but he could be collecting a lot more. Sometimes when a shot goes up, he looks lost. On top of that, he’s significantly leaner than most NBA bigs, so putting on some muscle soon would sure help.

The only other observation I’ll make about Mobley today is that he needs to pick up his free throw shooting. It still boggles my mind that professional basketball players struggle making free throws. Right now, Mobley is shooting just over 70 percent from the charity stripe, and that’s not terrible. However, he needs to start to become automatic at the line.

It may take some time, but his shooting stroke is solid, and the talent is there for him to be an 80 percent free throw shooter. If he could honestly get that percentage up to 80 percent, there would be even fewer ways to stop the young man.