Setting Expectations: Evan Mobley

Editor’s Note: Please welcome back to the blog, Dani Socher, who was our links editor as a teenager, so long ago his bylines were by “Admin.” Dani will be contributing analysis and recaps this summer and throughout the season!

When the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Evan Mobley with the No. 3 overall pick, they landed a tantalizing prospect with center-sized height and length to go with the skillset and feel of a much smaller player. This stems from an adolescent growth spurt, as Mobley played guard until he grew a foot in middle school, much like Anthony Davis. The comparison many have made is to Chris Bosh, an especially exciting idea given how neatly Miami-era Bosh would slot into the modern NBA as a shot-blocking shooter who can score off the bounce or in the post.

We shouldn’t expect Mobley to enter the league as a great shooter. In his one year at USC he shot 30% on the nose, taking only 1.2 threes a game. But his consistent shooting form and touch in the paint area has led to many confidently calling him a stretch four/five. He even flashed pull-up threes at times, which is an intoxicating sight. But however solid the form looks (see below), I wouldn’t over-index on aesthetics and assume he’s going to be a high-volume bomber any time soon. While Mobley’s jump shot form is mechanically sound, it’s not particularly easy or quick.

Evan’s J also lacks flexibility, which means he probably won’t be shooting off of movement. He mainly shot standstill, open jumpers. This is reflected in the volume: at USC, Mobley recorded single-game highs of two 3PM and only four 3PA. Historically, college free throw shooting is more predictive of future three-point shooting than any other statistic. Mobley’s solid 69% at the line is suggestive of a decent, but not great shooter. Interestingly, that is almost identical to Anthony Davis’ 70% free-throw percentage at Kentucky. Davis, actually, is a good model for where fans should set their medium to long-term shooting expectations for Mobley: right around league average, respected but not feared from long-distance.

There is also reason to be skeptical of Mobley’s ability to create off the bounce early on. If you watch some highlight clips you’ll see some great late-clock dribble drives where he gets into the lane and makes a strong pass or finishes/gets fouled. However, there’s a reason those clips are made up of highlights – dribbling was not a major component of Evan Mobley’s game in college. He was most effective setting screens and rolling to the rim, either getting up for the alley-oop or passing out of the short roll.

The parts of Mobley’s offensive game that excite me the most right now are his passing and his rim-finishing. The passing flashes are absurd – look at the clips below. It is safe to say that Mobley will enter the league as an above-average passing big, and that is an extremely valuable skillset. It will open things up for the Cavs offense in a major way, as he will be able to improvise intelligent defense-bending plays on the fly. Given his nascent ability to handle the ball, we could even see some reverse pick and roll plays where Sexton or Garland screen for Mobley and roll or pop for the pass.

The rim-finishing is also extremely impressive, and it will work at the next level. Mobley has good touch, is able to use the glass well, and more importantly is big and long as hell. He doesn’t have insane hops, but he also doesn’t need them. Mobley has a wingspan of 7’4″. For context, Giannis freaking Antetokounmpo has a wingspan of 7 ‘3; that kind of length allows you to finish around, over and through most opponents without getting your head above the rim. Mobley should be an elite finisher off of pick and roll and offensive rebounds right away, which will make life easier for the Cavs’ young ballhandlers.

Taking all of that into consideration, what type of offensive player do we have in Evan Mobley? Early on, especially when playing the four position, he will be a jack of all trades and master of none. He will shoot a little, pass a little, score a little. There will be titillating flashes of high upside – a poster dunk here, a dribble-drive into a pull-up there – but it is unlikely that Mobley will put it all together on offense in more than a few games.

You’ll notice that I haven’t yet brought up Mobley’s defense, and there’s a reason for that: it’s guaranteed to be good, likely to be elite, and potentially generational. Mobley averaged 2.9 blocks per game while maintaining a miniscule foul rate of 2.1 per 40 minutes. He is athletically gifted and quite smart on that end, quick enough to switch out to the perimeter to corral ballhandlers and large enough to handle most bigs in the post – sometimes in the span of a few seconds.

Not only can @evan_mobley7 guard 1 thru 5, he can do it on the same possession.

CC: @Mike_Schmitz @Sam_Vecenie pic.twitter.com/BfSENmVwO8

— USC Men's Basketball (@USC_Hoops) March 12, 2021

Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley should be able to anchor a top 10 defense in the league, even with middling to bad defenders around them. The NBA is getting smaller, but that trend is about maximizing offense. Most teams are better on defense with two-big lineups, and Mobley-Allen is a truly fearsome combination. Unleash Mobley as a ballhawk and weakside rim-protector while guarding the opponent’s worst player (ala Giannis), and the Cavs could be stifling on that end. Although the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks went small at times in the playoffs, their core group included Giannis playing alongside Brook Lopez. Two seven-footers on the floor – two elite shot-blocking seven-footers, no less – creates an utter thicket of long arms to get through for opponents at the rim. Mobley is the best defensive prospect since Anthony Davis, and he has DPOY upside.

Mobley is very athletic for his size, but his athleticism, and the way it plays out on both ends of the court, is somewhat unique. He’s not as quick pivoting in tight spaces as Anthony Davis, although he is just as fast off his feet – Mobley can get up in an instant, barely needing to bend at the knees. He doesn’t physically overpower guys on offense, as much as he reaches over them for the shot or dunk. He moves with impressive economy of motion, and is very smooth at all times. He prefers to stay high off the ground on defense, although he has shown the ability to get low on the occasional drive to the rim.

Draft evaluators are overrating Mobley’s switch defense, at least early on. His high hips and difficulty defending in a low stance will make it hard for him to contain NBA guards, who are able to change speeds and confuse young bigs in a way that college guards don’t. USC played him close to the rim almost all the time, letting him patrol the paint and help out on drives. He needs to rely on his length, vertical, and exceptional defensive instincts when defending shifty players, because his hips aren’t incredibly flexible when containing ballhandlers. It’s hard to see him defending a superstar wing for a full game, even in the future, and given the Cavs’ lack of solid team defense, Mobley’s talent for rarely getting crossed up and letting a player get to a side and then smothering them with his wingspan will be put to the test.

This is a relative weakness – it’s not really fair to criticize Mobley for not flipping his hips as quickly as AD and Draymond, two of the best 10 defensive players of all time at their peaks. But that’s how good of a defender Mobley projects to be – you have to nitpick to find anything wrong. He also lacks the bulk to handle Embiid and Jokic, but that’s true of essentially everyone in the league, and he has enough length to make them work for their points. Lastly, Mobley is a very poor defensive rebounder right now. As he gains some weight, that should improve, of course, and it won’t be an issue next to Allen.

Early on, Mobley’s most limiting weaknesses will be on offense, where he seems to be an imperfect fit with the Cavalier’s brand-new $100 million-dollar man. The Cavs would only sign that contract under the premise that Allen and Mobley are a strong offensive duo. That will eventually be true, but Mobley is going to struggle on offense as a rookie power forward. He will be playing from the perimeter when paired with Allen, which means that the dribble-drive will have to be a significant component of his game early on. His dribble game is functional but far from advanced, and the aforementioned (relatively) slow/high hips, along with his size, make it hard for him to make mid-drive adjustments or directional changes. Kevin Durant-style moves – two hard dribbles to the baseline, and an nearly-instant hard stop and pull-up jumper – should not be expected.

Cavs fans should be hopeful that the Cavs can find Mobley 10-15 minutes a game as the only true center on the floor, playing next to Kevin Love or Larry Nance Jr. Their shooting will space the floor for him as a rim-runner, picking up easy lob buckets and put-backs. In these minutes, Mobley should be given as many ball-handling reps as he can handle, along with him pushing in transition constantly. I mentioned above that Mobley can’t move like Kevin Durant. However, his fluidity and gazelle-like movement in the open floor reminds me of Giannis Antentokounmpo, and that is where Mobley should look for offensive inspiration.

Evan should focus primarily on developing the euro-step, which he flashed in high school. As his length, he can cover a massive amount of ground and make it nearly impossible to defend without fouling. Even on simple straight-line drives, Mobley should be able to beat most traditional centers to the cup, assuming that his nascent jumper pulls them out to the perimeter. He can blow by the likes of Alex Len with ease. But when playing next to Allen as a four-man, Mobley will probably have trouble scoring on fours like Siakam, Crowder, or others who can body up on the perimeter and pressure the ball. This is all to say that if the offense works out the way we want it to, it will be most valuable at the center position. There’s a reason that the Warriors are best with Draymond Green at the five, and same goes for the Lakers with Anthony Davis. As a power forward, Mobley has all-star upside. But at center, where he can dominate games on both ends at his peak, the upside is multiple MVPs.

With Mobley, it’s important to address “intangibles,” or “mentality,” or “attitude.” Of course, these are the most debatable and least predictable elements of prospect evaluation. For example, everyone lauds Kobe Bryant for being incredibly selfish on offense for the vast majority of his career. Yet we simultaneously see Denis Schroeder criticized for being a shoot-first player who cares about his stats. The difference between them isn’t really mentality, no matter what ESPN tells you. The difference is that Kobe Bryant was an all-time offensive talent, while Denis Schroeder is a league-average point guard.

There have been rumblings out of USC that Mobley checks out from time to time, and is inconsistent. Chad Ford and others have suggested that Evan’s brother Isaiah was the true leader on that USC team. Once you have read about this narrative, you start to see it in the tape: he doesn’t work hard to get the ball on offense, and he sometimes idles near the rim off-ball when he could be actively helping elsewhere. He isn’t the type of player who wants to jack up shots when his team falls behind. It seems like he just wants to play amazing defense and play his role on offense.

Overall, the intangibles are not something to worry about. Mobley is a hard worker who gets rave reviews from coaches and teammates alike. You know who has an inconsistent motor? Anthony Davis. The same has been said for Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic. And all Cavs fans have seen Lebron slump around the court on defense at times. No players are perfect, and big men often have “motor concerns” that don’t keep them from dominating. Giannis is an outlier in this respect.

I waited to discuss Summer League until the end, because it is the least important data we have on Evan Mobley. He played an entire year at USC, where he tripled up on awards: Pac-12 Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. College competition is limited in certain respects, but it provides a large sample of Mobley kicking ass. There is no structure in Summer League; players are encouraged to do whatever they want, and many of the players are incentivized to be selfish on offense. Trae Young was horrible in Summer League, and Dennis Smith Jr. was a God.

Mobley was extremely inconsistent in Summer League. He had some strong flashes – the putback slam on Sengun, a silky-smooth pullup 3 against Orlando – and the defense looked very good throughout. But Sengun outplayed him in their matchup, and Mobley turned the ball over constantly. He also got abused as a defensive rebounder. It’s not worth taking too seriously, except as a reminder that this is a very young player, a kid who just turned 20 and has endless upside. Sengun was seasoned in the Turkish league, and playing against European vets conditions you in a certain way. Mobley needs time, but that time is well worth taking. Plenty of evaluators felt Mobley had the highest upside in the 2021 draft, and Summer League doesn’t invalidate those evaluations.

Taking all of this into consideration, Cavaliers fans’ expectations for Mobley should be fluid and based on the surrounding team performance.  If the Cavs start out poorly, trade Collin Sexton and tank for another year, then we should expect to see Mobley playing the center position more often, with the Cavs trying to lose. If the Cavs aren’t trying to win, then there is no downside to letting their lottery pick test the boundaries of his offensive and defensive capabilities. In this scenario, Mobley should put up bigger numbers and contend for ROY, although he will struggle to defend in the post and turn the ball over at a high rate

But if the Cavs have the season they they want to have, landing in the 7-10 range, it will likely be driven by the Mobley-Allen defensive combination, and Mobley will likely spend 80-90% of his minutes at power forward. In this scenario, Allen’s rim protection and veteran smarts will allow Mobley to be a wrecking ball on defense – and do just enough on offense to keep the defense semi-honest when he’s out there.

If everything goes right, Cavaliers fans should prepare themselves for a rookie season from Mobley that lacks the counting stats of guys like Green, Cunningham and Suggs. But counting stats are just counting stats, and we shouldn’t expect a rookie big to put up volume shooting numbers. It will likely be a few years before Mobley nears 25 game.

The modern NBA is also designed in a way that makes mobile, switchy shot-blockers the most dominant defensive players around. Look at the defensive anchors of the NBA’s last two title teams: Giannis and AD both defend in a way that Mobley can replicate to some extent. While the scoring guards in this draft likely have a higher offensive ceiling than Mobley, the fluid and multi-skilled seven-footer is a rarer archetype, and a cleaner fit on an eventual contender.

So when you watch the Cavs this year, pay attention to the little things he does. The way he contests without fouling, the way he can bother a shifty guard on a switch. The way that he gets back on defense in transition and never misses a rotation to the open shooter in the corner. These are the little things that, added up, lead to truly impactful defensive play that drives winning at a high level.

If I’m wrong and Mobley’s better than expected, it’s because…

The Cavs unleash him in transition, and Mobley’s dribble is strong enough to make Giannis-lite use of his length and speed to score easily over smaller/slower defenders on the break. His shooting improves through hard work and form correction, making him a legit stretch five shooting 36% from deep on 6-7 attempts a game. Mobley narrowly misses the All Star game as he leads the young Cavs to a 8-seed much earlier than expected.

If I’m wrong and Mobley’s worse than expected, it’s because…

The jumper looks awkward from day one, and Mobley isn’t comfortable creating off the dribble or containing ballhandlers. This makes him a very poor fit with Jarrett Allen, and the Cavs find themselves floundering in a low-spacing offense and end up with another top-3 pick in 2022.

Tidbits 

• There are draft evaluators out there who will tell you that Mobley is a wing. I’m ignoring that idea for now because he isn’t quick enough or dexterous to play primarily on the perimeter. For now it’s safe to think of him as a big with wing skills, as opposed to an oversized wing.
• With two great defensive bigs who will share the floor more often than not, the Cavs need to stop making excuses for their guard defense. It’s time to see if Sexton, Garland, or both (please, God?) can be functional defenders in a strong system, as both get closer to massive contract extions.
• Read this profile from Mirin Fader at The Ringer if you hadn’t yet. Story opens with 6-foot adolescent Evan casually doing backflips from a standstill.