Cavs at a crossroads: Mobley as the starting center, Jarrett Allen on the trade block?

The Cleveland Cavaliers have struggled to gain traction this season and find themselves in the Play-In zone at the midway point. The Cavs have already suffered 19 losses, one more than the entire regular season last year, which ended with a 64-18 record under head coach Atkinson.

The clearest symbol of this downturn is the performance of the Allen-Mobley frontcourt pairing, not so much in terms of raw numbers, but in intensity and reliability.

On his podcast, Zach Lowe spoke directly about how the Cavs are managing their two big men:

A few months ago, I was wondering whether by the end of the season we would definitively conclude that Evan Mobley is a center, given that Jarrett Allen’s minutes in fourth quarters are declining. The Cavs have to resolve this situation.

Zach Lowe

Cleveland’s coaching staff no longer appears comfortable playing Allen and Mobley together, increasingly preferring Mobley as the 5. That shifts the issue to the power forward spot, where the Cavs have been patching things together with players like De’Andre Hunter and Jaylon Tyson, neither of whom has provided consistent production.

If the Cavaliers want to return to being a credible contender, a move on the trade market may become inevitable. That could mean trading Jarrett Allen – who seems to have lost Atkinson’s trust – for an athletic, defensively reliable wing to pair alongside Evan Mobley.