Cup of Cavs: Jarrett Allen understands what makes him good

Cavs news and links for Monday, August 5.

Here’s your Cleveland Cavaliers news and notes for the start of the week.

The first sip

Jarrett Allen doesn’t possess extraordinary skills. At least not compared with other top-ten centers in the league. He isn’t physically imposing, doesn’t have exceptional height at 6’9”, and isn’t an offensive perimeter threat. He’s simply a traditional center who fully understands and completely buys into his role.

Former Charlotte Hornets’ coach Steve Clifford summed up how Allen can have an outsized impact compared with his skill late last season. Here’s an excerpt from my write-up of those quotes. I keep coming back to this when evaluating Allen.

“I think that he knows how he has to play in order for him to play well and for the team to function, and he does it every time,” Clifford said. “He’s not one of those guys that runs when he feels like. He runs every possession. If you watch him on his rolls, he sprints to the rim. He does it every time.”

Understanding your role will always allow you to be the best version of yourself. It’s something that isn’t brought up nearly enough when evaluating players.

“One of the hardest things I think for players, and especially now where they don’t play as long in college and they’re not spending as much time with their high school coaches, is simply [knowing how to] play to your strengths,” Clifford said. “You know what your strengths are and you play to your strengths.”

This is something that has set Allen apart.

“It’s a huge skill,” Clifford said. “It’s not just the center position, but there are guys in this league that score every night and they’re not very good. We don’t have guys coming into the league like him anymore who, to me, know how they have to play. It’s a real challenge.”

Allen credits his development with the Brooklyn Nets under Kenny Atkinson’s coaching staff for the player that he is today. It’s fair to wonder whether or not reuniting with Atkinson can help him take his game to another level. Atkinson has talked about getting the ball in Evan Mobley’s hands more. That’s also something they could do with Allen.

Allen was much more involved during the Cavs stretch without Mobley and Darius Garland in the middle of the season. Allen averaged 3.1 assists in that span compared with his season average of 1.3. He was able to do this by being more of a hub on the perimeter with dribble-hand-offs and by finding shooters on the when the defense collapsed in the paint.

Atkinson was brought in to optimize the offense. Figuring out how to better use the bigs will be a big part of that.

The second sip

Speaking of Mobley, here’s a workout video of him with his brother and Isaiah Collier. It’s truly the offseason when we’re dissecting workout videos.

Dreaming about the playoffs is another sign that we’re deep into the offseason.

Game 3 and Game 4 of the second round against the Boston Celtics were among the loudest I’ve ever Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. I can’t imagine how loud it would’ve been if they were able to steal either contest.

Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

Random Cavalier of the Day - Roy Hinson

Hinson was taken 20th overall by the Cavs in the 1983 NBA Draft. He played three seasons for the Cavs and started 218 of his 238 games. The small forward averaged 13.6 points on .517/.000/.741 shooting splits with 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.

Hinson’s biggest impact on the Cavs came in who he was traded for. The Philadelphia 76ers had the top pick in the 1986 draft because they traded Joe Bryant (Kobe’s father) to the Los Angeles Clippers for an unprotected first. The pick the Clipper traded away ended up being the first overall which seems to be an organizational trend. Instead of using a young player to supplement a Charles Barkley-led team that still had aging legends in Maurice Cheeks, Julius Erving, and Moses Malone, the Sixers inexplicably traded the pick for Hinson.

Newly appointed Cavs GM, Wayne Embry, said at the time, “I could not believe the Sixers really would trade the first pick in the draft.”

Lenny Bias, who died shortly after the draft, and Brad Daugherty were the two candidates for the top pick. The Cavs went with Daugherty who ended up being one of the best players in franchise history. Cleveland has had the number one overall pick six times. They acquired two of those picks via trade. As good as the Mo Williams deal that landed them Kyrie Irving was, this trade for Daugherty was the best in franchise history.

Hinson was only in Philadelphia for a season and a half before he was traded to the Nets in a package for Mike Gminski (career 11.7 points per game) and Ben Coleman (career 6.6 points per game). Hinson currently ranks 40th on the Cavs all-time scoring list with 3,244 points with the team.

Cavs news and links

Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that the Cavs are interested in bringing back Marcus Morris. Pompey writes:

The Sixers only have a one-year veteran-minimum salary of $3.3 million available to offer him. Sources say the Cavs, who are highly interested, are prepared to give Morris nearly double that amount. Despite that, Morris can still see himself coming back to the Sixers.

Considering how cost-conscious the front office seems to be, it would be surprising if they willingly gave Morris $6 million or more as Pompey is suggesting. We’ll see how this shakes out.

The whole article can be read here.

Links of the day

• US men’s national team has plenty of flaws, but possibly note that matter
• Olympic men’s basketball schedule
• Greece is no ‘Dream Team,’ but Giannis Antetokounmpo leads with pride ($)
• All NBA contracts are not the same, as Nic Claxton, Cam Johnson deals show