Evan Mobley did not end up winning the Rookie of the Year award, which, even with me being a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, was pretty surprising. The honor went to Scottie Raptors of the Toronto Raptors, who, similarly to Mobley, turned out to be a tremendous selection for his team from the past 2021 NBA Draft.
I personally am with our own Corey Casey, who believes Mobley was robbed of the Rookie of the Year, but that’s in the past now. It can be more motivation for Mobley this offseason, too, and it is what it is.
This isn’t to take anything away from Mobley’s rookie year, though. He was a crucial reason why the Cavaliers had a resurgent 2021-22 season, in which they won 44 games, which was a 22-win improvement from last season. The team also had its most wins without LeBron James on the roster since 1998.
The Wine and Gold stumbled down the stretch of the season, and didn’t make the postseason, which was disappointing, based on much of the season went. Plenty of why that didn’t happen was injuries, but we don’t need to get into that right now.
In Mobley’s case, he again was outstanding in his first season with the Cavaliers, with averages of 15.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.7 blocks per contest. His defensive abilities, touch and basketball intelligence, even more so for such a young player in his first season, jumped out time and time again, and I was so impressed.
Additionally, while it’s not necessarily discussed as extensively as some other aspects of his game that were on display in his rookie year, I thought the playmaking signs from Mobley were encouraging, too.
There were promising playmaking signs from Mobley in his first season with the Cavs, and he’ll only improve in that area.
Mobley, as we noted, had 2.5 assists per outing in his first season for the Cavs. Per-36 minutes, he averaged a similar 2.7 assists.
Now, those splits didn’t blow anyones’ socks off, per se, but for a 7-foot big in his first season with others still involved for Cleveland, I thought the encouraging playmaking instincts he displayed in his lone collegiate season at USC were demonstrated as a rookie.
Mobley does need to improve in coming years, and hopefully makes some strides as a catch-and-shoot player from three to get better in tandem offensively with Jarrett Allen, in fairness. Mobley had some growth signs; unfortunately, he shot only 25.0 percent from three as a rookie with the Cavaliers, to that point.
That being said, Mobley exhibited great feel for making plays out of double teams, and not just with simple passes. He found productive ball-swings on the weak side in those situations at times, or interior players in those situations, such as Jarrett Allen or Isaac Okoro.
Mobley made quality extra pass plays time and time again, in general, in set situations, too. Whether they big-to-big plays to Allen over the top, to Lauri Markkanen or Kevin Love as a catch-and-shoot presence via skip feeds, or got them deliveries to take advantage of mismatches, Mobley’s IQ as a ball-mover jumped out.
That’s not to say he didn’t help out perimeter guys as well, such as Darius Garland as a shooter, Cedi Osman or others, and for a rookie, as we expressed, Mobley’s passing polish for a big was yet another key positive takeaway from his awesome Year 1. I just hope it doesn’t go under-the-radar, in comparison to some other aspects of his game, for what it’s worth.
Mobley does need to sharpen up his play at times of course to help the Cavaliers convert in 4-on-3 situations when teams want to get the ball out of Darius Garland’s hands, for example, and Mobley did have a 13.0 percent turnover rate. That wasn’t awful, necessarily, and was in the 52nd percentile among bigs, per Cleaning The Glass.
His turnover rate was more than his assist rate, but on the plus side, Mobley, for a rookie, mind you, had an assist rate of 11.7 percent, which was still in the 69th percentile among bigs, also per Cleaning The Glass.
Point being, while I’m not suggesting Mobley is going to eventually turn into the second coming of Nikola Jokic as a passing big, he’s off to a pretty nice start as a secondary playmaking presence/ball-mover early in his career.
Hopefully that trend carries forward into Year 2 and beyond for Evan, who turns 21 in June.