The Cleveland Cavaliers have now had two seasons where they’ve been able to climb the rankings in the NBA Eastern Conference standings. They currently sit in third place and have a nice 13-8 record.
If you were wanting to invest in the team right now would be a great time to do that. Several Cavs have been playing some fantastic basketball. Let’s look at a few that have been outstanding in their contributions to the team’s success of late.
Here, we’ll highlight three Cavs players, in particular, with their stock on the upswing.
The first has to be their young big man.
Cavs player No. 1 whose stock is up: Evan Mobley
With the recent injury to Jarrett Allen, the Cavs other big man, this is an opportunity for Evan Mobley to step out in the limelight and shine. He’s only in his second season, but he’s already showing that he’s here to stay and on the cusp of becoming a superstar in the league.
In the recent game against the Toronto Raptors, he finished with 18 points and had 15 rebounds, albeit in a loss. In the game before that against the Detroit Pistons, he knocked in 20 points and had 13 rebounds in a win.
In the previous week of games, the Cavaliers lost a tough game to the best team in the East in the Milwaukee Bucks, but Mobley was given a lot of praise from arguably the best player in the NBA in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo said this about the youngster, via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com.
"“He can be better than me. I don’t see why he can’t…He can move very well. He can shoot. He is very smart…. he watches tape of other players which is very good for a young player. If he takes it seriously, he’s going to be great.”"
The last two seasons for Cleveland have gone well in large part because of the drafting of Mobley. His defensive presence and his offensive talents have made other teams have to plan their games around how they will gameplan with Mobley being such an excellent young talent. The skies the limit for him and with his team succeeding and growing more confident every day there’s no telling how far Mobley can go.
Buy that stock now because his value will only increase over the long haul.
No. 2 Cavs player whose stock is up: Isaac Okoro
In the last Cavs stock report, we had Isaac Okoro with stock way down. His production was at an all-time low, but since then his value has certainly gone up, especially because he continues to play great defense. With recent injuries to other players on the squad, Okoro has gotten a couple of starts again. While he was a regular starter in the past, that hasn’t been the case this season. Despite that, he continues to keep showing grit and determination.
One key indicator of how he’s helping the team the most is by looking at his plus-minus statistic where one can see when a player is on the court how the team does. For Okoro, he’s had six straight games of plus numbers with a season-high of plus-26 when the team got a win against the Miami Heat over a week ago, though they were shorthanded. But, regardless, that shows just how tough his defense has been and how that helps the team when he’s playing, and that’s been commonplace recently.
While he’s not producing a lot on the offensive end of the floor, his stock will continue to grow if he can keep those defensive numbers high.
There is always a player or two on your team that always have that “grit” part to their game and though you can’t always see that in a traditional box score the coaches know that player helps their team win games.
No. 3 Cavs player stock whose stock is up: Donovan Mitchell
We discussed the stock prices of Donovan Mitchell being pretty high in our last report. In this review, we have to keep him as the biggest stock security. He has continued to be shown on a nightly basis just what a superstar he is for this team and in the league. While he has slipped a bit in his scoring average at 28.9 per game, that still ranks him as seventh in the NBA.
In the game against the Raptors on Monday night, he only scored eight points. We point this out because it is the only time, he’s scored in single digits all season. He’s usually posting 20 to 30 points each night, and the consistency in his production can’t be undervalued. He’s brought this Cavaliers team a star that can be counted on in big moments.
The season moving forward will become even more difficult for Cleveland as teams challenge them even more. We saw what that pressure did to the Wine and Gold a year ago as well. That meltdown by the team was more to do with the inexperience of playing in big games that mattered.
But, fortunately, now, with Mitchell leading this young pack of Cavs, the team is in a lot better position moving on this time.