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Regrading last summer’s Jarrett Allen contract for the Cavs

By Josh Cornelissen

Jarrett Allen, Cleveland Cavaliers. Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images
Jarrett Allen, Cleveland Cavaliers. Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images /
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Cleveland Cavaliers big Jarrett Allen (middle) and Cleveland wings Isaac Okoro (left) and Caris LeVert (right) celebrate in-game. (Photo by David Richard-USA TODAY Sports) /

Regrading Jarrett Allen’s contract: Overall Grade

Among all centers in the league, Jarrett Allen’s $20 million salary this season ranked seventh, with four All-NBA contenders (Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic) and two former All-Stars (Al Horford, Nikola Vucevic) ahead of him. In average annual value over the life of the deal Allen drops slightly to eighth, with Clint Capela jumping him.

For Allen to live up to that deal this season he needed to be a clear top-10 center in the league. Prior to last season we ranked the league’s centers and Allen came in at Tier 4, the “solid starters” category, alongside such names as Horford, Jakob Poetl, Jonas Valanciunas and Christian Wood. That placed him in the 12-15 range.

We will re-rank the centers and find Allen’s place among them, but he has certainly leapt up the list. At the very least he would be in Tier 3, “above-average starters” but he has a chance to creep even further. He’s absolutely in the Top 10 among the league’s centers now, and at only 23 years old he will continue to ascend.

The Cavs almost certainly did not need to spend $100 million to lock Allen up, so at the time they gave up value because of where they projected Allen to grow. He absolutely capitalized on that, making this much more of a fair deal, but it could have been even better.

That being said, keeping the deal flat will mean Allen’s contract takes up an increasingly smaller percentage of the cap every year, and his fit on this team was tremendous. He will never be an MVP-candidate, but there is no reason to think he won’t continue to challenge for All-Star berths and All-Defense selections. Having Allen for four more seasons is a huge asset for the Cavs.

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Jarrett Allen is a young center continuing to grow who absolutely earned his contract amount this season. It wasn’t a home run in terms of contract value, but it was fair and will only look better with time. The All-Star center got his money and has now proven himself worthy of it.

Grade: B+