Evan Mobley isn’t hiding how he feels about James Harden.
When he spoke with local reporters, the Cleveland Cavaliers big man made it clear that sharing a locker room with Harden still feels a little surreal. Mobley called him “a legend” and said he’s been soaking up the chance to be around him every day.
“Like you said, a legend," Mobley said about Harden. "It’s crazy that I get to play with him and be around him every day and learn from him.
It’s surreal in a way. But as I get to know him every single day, he’s a great guy, just a normal dude just like all of us.
I feel that’s a big factor that lot of people hold people on pedestals, but he’s just a normal guy just like all of us. I feel that gives everyone else confidence that he has a good personality, natural personality, and gets along with everyone.
He’s not trying to big-time anyone or anything like that.”
Cleveland is rolling out a starting five of Harden, Donovan Mitchell, Peyton Watson, Jarrett Allen and Mobley this season, and on paper it looks loaded. Harden arrived from the LA Clippers last season and put up 20.5 points and 7.7 assists per game in the regular season, then followed that with 19.2 points and 5.5 assists per game in the playoffs.
Mitchell has been a scoring machine since landing in Cleveland from the Utah Jazz before the 2022-23 season. In a Cavaliers uniform, he’s averaging 26.7 points per game in the regular season and 27.3 points per game in the playoffs. He also locked in with a four-year, $273 million maximum contract extension this offseason.
Watson is in the mix after signing a four-year, $88 million deal to join Cleveland in a sign-and-trade with the Nuggets. The contract includes a player option and a trade kicker.
Last season for Denver, Watson averaged 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 49.1% from the field, 41.1% from beyond the arc and 73.0% from the free-throw line. He’s one of the top two-way wings in the league.
Allen is set to make $28 million this season, and he brings steady production inside. The Texas product averaged 15.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game last season while shooting 63.8% from the field and 70.9% from the free-throw line. He also posted 20 double-doubles.
Mobley, meanwhile, is coming off a season in which he averaged 18.2 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 54.6% from the field, 29.7% from three and 60.6% from the line.
The Cavaliers chose not to move Mobley for Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was traded to the Heat, and they also passed on a deal that would have sent Mobley to the Philadelphia 76ers for Jaylen Brown. That leaves Mobley under major pressure to deliver like a superstar this season.
If he doesn’t, Cleveland could end up regretting holding onto him instead of dealing him for Brown or Antetokounmpo, both former Finals MVPs.
And the stakes don’t stop there. If the Cavaliers come up short in the 2027 playoffs, it wouldn’t be a shock if Mitchell, Harden and Allen are gone by 2027-28.
For now, though, Cleveland is aiming high with this group. Mitchell, Watson, Harden, Mobley and Allen will try to do what LeBron did in 2016, when the 2015-16 Cavaliers beat the 73-9 Golden State Warriors to win the championship.
In Other News...
Evan Mobley Debate Just Got Uncomfortable For The Cavs
A speculative Evan Mobley-for-Matas Buzelis trade idea has surfaced in the kind of offseason chatter that always lands a little harder when it involves a cornerstone player. For Cleveland, the premise is uncomfortable because Mobley remains one of the leagues most valuable young defenders, the sort of player who changes the floor on that end even when the offense is still evolving. For Chicago, Buzelis is the more theoretical piece, a young forward whose appeal rests on the belief that his scoring upside can keep growing into something bigger.
The debate gets interesting because both sides can talk themselves into the basketball fit, even if the idea lives entirely in hypotheticals. Cleveland would be weighing whether to move off a proven defensive anchor for a higher-variance offensive swing, while the Bulls would be asking how much patience they have for Buzelis to reach his ceiling. Nothing about this points to real negotiations, but it is the kind of thought experiment that exposes just how delicate the balance is when a team starts wondering whether its best long-term answer is already in hand. [Read more 🡒]
Three Young Cavs Suddenly Have A Real Shot To Matter
Craig Porter Jr., Tyrese Proctor and reserve forward Jaylon Tyson are all at a stage where the Cavaliers can still reasonably imagine more coming from them. For a team trying to keep building around established pieces, young depth matters, and Cleveland has a few players who fit the kind of long-view conversation coaches and front offices like to have in-season. The appeal here is not just age, but the chance that each can sharpen a specific part of his game enough to stop being a developmental name and start becoming a dependable rotation option.
Proctor has already drawn some attention from Kenny Atkinson, who recently pointed to the guards physical development as part of his progress, and that only adds to the sense that his timeline is moving in the right direction. Porter and Tyson, meanwhile, are still in the category of players whose next step could come from simple but important growth, including greater shooting aggression and more consistency. None of it is finished, but for Cleveland, the possibility that a few young players might meaningfully matter by 2026-27 is the kind of internal upside that can shape a roster more than any outside rumor. [Read more 🡒]
LeBrons Latest Health Concern Changes Clevelands Biggest What-If
LeBron James latest health update has added another layer to the long-running conversation about what might have been in Cleveland. After leaving for Philadelphia for what is expected to be the final two seasons of his career, James is now dealing with chronic arthritis in his left foot and lower-back issues, according to an ESPN report. It is the kind of news that resonates far beyond his current team, because for Cavaliers fans it brings back the familiar mix of admiration and regret that has followed every twist in his late-career arc.
James reportedly monitors the problems daily as part of his training, and last season he missed about a month because of sciatica. For Philadelphia, the concern is obvious: availability always shapes everything around a player at this stage, from rhythm to lineup stability to the larger ceiling of the season. For Cleveland, it only sharpens the old question of how different things might have looked if this version of James, with all the wear and tear that comes with the miles, had been part of the present instead of another teams future. [Read more 🡒]