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, $100 million deal to stick around.
Let’s go back to January and evaluate that trade with the benefit of hindsight. What was the general opinion of the deal when it went down, and how do things look given what we know now? In some ways this deal kicked off the next season of the team’s rebuild; how well did the Cavs do by stepping in to add Allen?
Regrading Cavs’ trade for Jarrett Allen: What we thought then
The Cleveland Cavaliers were not rabid suitors of available centers back at the start of the 2020-21 NBA season. They had Andre Drummond and JaVale McGee in tow, not to mention Larry Nance Jr., Marques Bolden and Thon Maker all in the mix. They certainly didn’t need a big man in the immediate.
That led to much of the head-scratching when the Cavs’ involvement in the deal was announced. ESPN’s Kevin Pelton ($) called it “awkward” given the logjam of bigs, and gave the Cavs a tepid grade on the deal; while he acknowledged Allen’s excellent fit with Darius Garland and Collin Sexton, he thought the cost in draft capital and dead salary (in taking on Taurean Prince’s contract) was unbalanced to Cleveland’s detriment. Other analysts who keep a close eye on contracts and transactions remarked on how the Cavs paid a hefty price at the league’s most replaceable position only to set themselves up to overpay Allen in restricted free agency that summer.
Others were much more positive. The Athletic’s Shams Charania ($) gave the Cavs an A+ for adding a high-level two-way center, comparing him to Alonzo Mourning (to be fair Charania’s career is based on positive relationships with teams and agents, so all of his grades are wildly positive).
Those covering the Cavs somehow topped Charania’s grade, however. Sam Penix of CavsNation gave the deal an A++, and our own Dan Gilinsky gave it “three thumbs up (if that were possible)” and called it a relative killing for how little they paid. “Take a bow” he told Koby Altman.
How did that positivity hold up?
Regrading Cavs’ trade for Jarrett Allen: How it went
Jarrett Allen’s play the remainder of the 2020-21 season was solid, if unspectacular. He flexed a lot of the two-way muscle he had when given the opportunity in Brooklyn, but he wasn’t blowing the doors off the barn. He averaged 13.2 points and 9.9 rebounds across 40 games, eventually forcing Andre Drummond to the bench and off the team. He turned in a positive Box Plus-Minus despite playing on a losing team, leading all full-time players.
Then came the summer and restricted free agency, when Allen was re-signed within minutes of free agency beginning to a five-year, $100 million deal that we re-examined here. At the time it was signed it looked like a classic “who else was paying him that much” sort of contract that the Cavs felt they had to offer since they had traded for the guy.
Since then Allen has exploded into the top tiers of centers. We’ll rank the league’s Top 30 centers on the site in a few weeks, but few could compile a Top 10 list without including Allen. He averaged career highs in points and rebounds at 16.1 and 10.8, respectively. He made for an elite pick-and-roll partner with Darius Garland, finishing second in the league in field goal percentage. When he or a teammate missed he was often right there to put it back in, with his 12.0 rebound percentage 10th in the league.
Defensively he was a monster as well, one of the league’s best rim protectors with the mobility to switch out onto the perimeter at times. The Cavs were one of the best defenses in the league with him on the court. Allen made the All-Star Game and if he hadn’t missed time late due to injury may have been in the mix for an All-Defense Team.
Regrading Cavs’ trade for Jarrett Allen: Final Grade
The Cleveland Cavaliers did a few things when they stepped into the James Harden deal. First, they acquired a talented young center; while at the time they had a logjam at the 5, all of those players were gone by the summer and Allen is clearly the center of the future in Cleveland.
Secondly, they all-but committed to signing Allen to a new deal. While that contract isn’t technically under the purview of a trade re-grading, the Cavs were able to lock down a young future All-Star for five seasons at a reasonable number; if Allen were signing that deal this summer he would certainly make significantly more than $20 million per season.
Finally, they took on the contract of Taurean Prince. That money was mostly “dead” money, but this past summer the Cavs were able to use that contract as matching salary to bring in Ricky Rubio (along with sending a second-round pick) who was an amazing fit and may rejoin the Cavs this summer.
At the time there were legitimate questions about giving up a first-round pick and taking on dead salary to acquire a somewhat unproven center in Jarrett Allen. Those questions have been answered; the pick was late in the first round, the salary was redeemed in the Rubio trade, and Allen has been even better than expected.
This deal was a “slam dunk”, a “three thumbs up” sort of trade. Jarrett Allen is an All-Star who should elevate this defense to Top-10 levels for the entirety of this contract, and he is still just barely entering his prime.
Grade: A+(+)