6 best moves the Cavaliers made during Koby Altman era

No. 2: Jumping into Jarrett Allen trade

The 2020-21 Cleveland Cavaliers appeared to be set at center. Andre Drummond was a behemoth in the middle, JaVale McGee was in town to back him up, and players such as Kevin Love and Larry Nance Jr. were arguably best deployed at the 5. Most teams in that situation aren’t going to trade for a center.

Yet that’s exactly what the Cavs did, leaping into the James Harden blockbuster trade between the Brooklyn Nets and Houston Rockets. They swapped a first-round pick for Brooklyn center Jarrett Allen and the “bad” contract of Taurean Prince, whom they flipped a year later for Ricky Rubio.

The fit with Allen and Drummond was obviously never going to work, and both he and McGee were gone by the end of the season. Allen showed plenty of promise down the stretch and then exploded as a two-way force the next season, anchoring a top-5 defense and earning an All-Star berth.

Trading for Allen meant re-signing him, something that allegedly scared some teams off, but the Cavs boldly handed him a five-year, $20 million contract. That was probably a slight overpay at the time, but even so it looks like a great bargain now with how Allen has been playing. The Cavs would make that deal 100 times out of 100.