The Cleveland Cavaliers have built their current team by pulling all of the levers of player acquisition. Core pieces like Evan Mobley, Darius Garland and even Collin Sexton were added via the draft; Lauri Markkanen effectively came in free agency in a sign-and-trade last August. 8 months before that, the Cavs leapt into a multi-team trade to add big man Jarrett Allen to the fold.
Back in January of 2021, former MVP James Harden was pouting his way free of Houston, and the Brooklyn Nets made the decision to leap into the trade waters and make an aggressive offer. To sweeten the pot, they needed to find a landing place for talented young center Jarrett Allen, who was not particularly wanted by the Rockets.
The Cavs brought in a pillar of their young core last year when they traded for Jarrett Allen. How should we regrade the deal with the benefit of hindsight?
Enter the Cavs, who offered to send a first-round pick for Allen and some matching salaries all around. In the end, the final deal for Cleveland saw Allen and Taurean Prince arrive in Cleveland, which sent out a 2022 first-round pick, a 2024 second-round pick and Dante Exum. Upon hitting restricted free agency the following summer he signed a five-year, $100 million deal to stick around.
Let’s go back to January and evaluate that trade with the benefit of hindsight. What was the general opinion of the deal when it went down, and how do things look given what we know now? In some ways this deal kicked off the next season of the team’s rebuild; how well did the Cavs do by stepping in to add Allen?