This now-past season was a career year for Cleveland Cavaliers 5 man Jarrett Allen. Allen had career-highs in points and rebounds per game with 16.1 and 10.8, respectively, and he backed up the team signing him to a five-year, $100 million deal last offseason.
The Cavaliers seemed to get their share of flack last offseason when they did that deal involving Allen, with the draft selection of Evan Mobley third overall, and with other bigs involved. The Cavaliers would later swing a sign-and-trade for Lauri Markkanen, too, as an aside.
I did get where the criticism came from, with Allen still needing to show more offensively in years to come, and the investment in other bigs. But Allen appeared to be one of the Cavaliers’ best players, and the team locking him up looked to be a wise call, either way.
To that point, Allen would again respond with a career season in his fifth year in the league, and first full season with Cleveland. Allen was acquired from the Brooklyn Nets as part of a piece involved in the 2020-21 James Harden trade which landed him in Brooklyn, who later traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers near the 2021-22 deadline, for what it’s worth.
In Allen’s case, he made his first All-Star Game earlier this year, and repped the host of this latest All-Star Game, in the Cavaliers. Allen and Cavs teammate Darius Garland both represented Cleveland on Team LeBron, which was really cool to see.
Now, unfortunately, the Cavs didn’t close out the regular season how they would’ve hoped for, and went just 9-15 post-All-Star break. Cleveland would eventually lose in both of their play-in game opportunities to the Nets and then the Atlanta Hawks, and missed the postseason.
Although, at least to me, injuries were part of the reason for that late-season stumble. To that point, Allen missing most of post-All-Star play (fractured finger) was detrimental to the team’s chances, not to mention Caris LeVert missing a chunk of time (foot sprain). And Dean Wade’s partial meniscus tear ending his season early didn’t help defensively.
It wasn’t all on injuries, in fairness. But generally, this now-past season was a success for the Cavaliers, who had quite a significant turnaround, despite some awful injury luck throughout the year, in relation to Collin Sexton, among others.
It was again a year where they did look to turn a corner, on the plus side, and from my perspective, on the subject of Allen, he appears to be one of the NBA’s best two-way 5s moving forward.
Allen looks to be one of the game’s best two-way 5s from here.
Allen is not in the elite group of centers, in general, that’s of the mold of Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns, or one could argue, when he’s right, Bam Adebayo. Adebayo didn’t have the greatest postseason; in my opinion, he’s still one of the game’s best 5s, though.
When it comes to balanced 5 men, however, I personally believe Allen from here, could be among the best two-way players at the position.
Allen’s offensive strides
Allen could feasibly be in the tier of players such as Nikola Vucevic, who is honestly an underrated defender at the rim, and one could put the likes of Deandre Ayton and when healthy, Brook Lopez, be up there, among two-way centers. That’s maybe below the top 4-5 overall in the league, to me at least.
Anyway, with Allen, while he’s not a stretch 5, I personally have been impressed with what he has shown as an interior finisher still, but also with the progression he has shown seemingly with more opportunities over his time with Cleveland.
Allen did a nice job with more looks in his near-first season with the Cavs in 2020-21, and in 2021-22, he made further strides as a post player, where his footwork looked very polished. And his ability to convert using both hands on hook shots and push shots, paired with his growth as a driver at times, led to plenty of quality offense.
Allen’s touch has improved over the years, and this past season, he showed more assertiveness as a creator for himself, and it paid dividends for himself and the team.
Along with that, it’s not going to be a bread and butter-type play for him yet, such as interior rolling looks lobs or from deep paint seals, but it was good to see Allen show more flashes at times in the mid-range on catch-and-shoots. That’s perhaps something that we could see more of situationally next season, too, and I did think there were promising signs as a secondary ball-mover from him.
Allen’s defensive impact is consistently there, and his two-way play will only get better
So, from there, regarding the two-way element, Allen formed quite a defensive frontcourt pairing with Evan Mobley, for the most part, this season when the two were healthy. Allen’s fractured finger caused him to miss most of post-All-Star break play, and the Cavs defense was not close to the same, with some other guys periodically missing time, too. Dean Wade’s partial meniscus tear for some of the closing stretch didn’t help, either, for example.
Generally, however, we have seen how much of a shot alterer Allen can be with Cleveland, and he was impactful with Brooklyn in that realm, too. Allen was fifth in the NBA in contested shots per game during the 2021-22 regular season, with Mobley checking in third, both per NBA.com’s hustle data.
Looking onward, with those two as the defensive backline it seems for Cleveland for significant stretches, it should bode well for the Wine and Gold. And despite Cleveland’s slide post-All-Star break, partially due to Allen’s absence, the team did still finish fifth in defensive rating.
In terms of Allen himself, his shot blocking/altering was again noteworthy, and he had 1.3 blocks per contest, to just 1.7 fouls per game, which was unreal. He should be able to build on this great defensive season with more experience as well.
With the Frobley duo’s verticality and timing, too, that sort of thing led to the Cavs conceding the lowest field goal hit rate in the restricted area in the regular season at 60.5 percent, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data. That was mixed in with some activity from guys like Isaac Okoro, Lamar Stevens and Lauri Markkanen around them, too, to some degree.
Also, I don’t gloss over how Allen demonstrated some switchability this past season onto some guards and wings at times when that was sensible. Though I’m not going to stamp the switch 5 label on him yet, Allen does move pretty well laterally for a 5, and that’s another part of why he’s trending way up as one of the game’s best 5 men, regarding the two-way impact on games.
Anyhow, while I’m not suggesting Allen is among the elite crop of 5s at the moment, but if he can add some more to his offensive game as a shooter, he could potentially be near that group down the road. The 6-foot-10 Texas product is already a terrific finisher with authority as a lob threat, as a roller and putback guy, and his post-up game is trending up.
So, based on his time with the Cavs, his All-Star breakout and with his defense, Allen looks to have more All-Star appearances in his future, I believe. And he just recently turned 24.