Jarrett Allen has become one of the easier Cavaliers to take for granted, and that says more about the way Cleveland is built than it does about Allen himself.
He has only one All-Star nod on his resume, and it came before Evan Mobley rose to his current level and before Donovan Mitchell arrived. Since then, Allen has often been treated like the odd man out among Cleveland’s stars.
He’s been the first name mentioned in trade chatter, he’s taken heat for playoff losses, and his blunt postgame honesty has not always won him friends. Too often, the conversation around him starts with what he supposedly isn’t.
That misses the point. Allen is still a very good two-way center, and in a league that keeps inflating the price of size, the Cavaliers should probably be louder about how well they’ve got him paid.
The market made that easier to see this offseason.
After a long standoff, All-NBA center Jalen Duren and the Detroit Pistons agreed to a five-year, $200 million deal that will pay him $40 million per year. Duren was eligible for even more after making an All-NBA team this past year, but even that caveat doesn’t change how sharply his price jumped compared with where he likely would have been a year ago.
The Los Angeles Lakers also dove into the center market, pulling off a sign-and-trade for former Utah Jazz big man Walker Kessler. That move cost them two first-round picks and two first-round swaps, and it came with a four-year, $130 million contract that pays Kessler an average of $32.5 million.
It wasn’t just the headline names, either. Teams handed out money to centers all over the place this offseason.
Even backups like Jock Landale landed $14 million on a one-year deal. Jusuf Nurkic is making $11 million per season, and the source material makes clear he is not a Top-30 center in the league.
The message is obvious: everybody wants bigs, and everybody is paying up.
Against that backdrop, Allen looks like a bargain.
He’s set to make $28 million this season and will average $30 million over the next three years on the three-year, $90 million extension that just began. That puts him 13th among centers in average annual value. While other teams are scrambling and overspending to secure size, Cleveland already has its anchor on a contract that doesn’t crush the rest of the roster.
And Allen still brings plenty of value on the floor. He protects the rim, holds up in space, rebounds, finishes around the basket and remains a strong roll man for guards. He does it without much fuss, and he accepts whatever role the team asks him to play.
In a market this heated, that kind of stability matters. The Cavaliers don’t have to chase a center at the top of the price curve.
They already have one. Jarrett Allen may not always get the credit, but the value is right there.
In Other News...
Jarrett Allen Trade Buzz Puts The Cavs In A Tough Spot
Jarrett Allens name keeps surfacing whenever the Cavaliers are mentioned in trade conversation, but the center isnt pretending the noise is going away anytime soon. He addressed the speculation this week and struck a calm tone, saying he knows how the business works while keeping his focus on continuing to be the best player he can be. For Cleveland, it is another reminder of how valuable Allen has become on both ends of the floor after a strong season in which he helped stabilize the paint and gave the offense a reliable interior presence.
The Cavs also have little reason to treat this as a simple roster note. Allen remains one of the most important pieces of their identity, and the organization appears to recognize the impact he has had. Even so, trade chatter tends to hang around productive big men, especially when teams are trying to balance present-day competitiveness with long-term flexibility, and that leaves Cleveland in a familiar spot: appreciating what Allen brings while trying to navigate the market around him. [Read more 🡒]
Peyton Watson Showed Exactly What The Cavs Have Been Missing
Peyton Watson flashed the kind of two-way energy the Cavaliers can always use in a preseason meeting with the Orlando Magic, giving Cleveland a reminder of how valuable a defense-first wing can be. He finished with 10 points, four rebounds and two blocks while staying active around the rim, the sort of low-usage, high-impact contribution that tends to matter when rotations tighten.
Watsons best moment came on a putback dunk that underscored his length and burst, the kind of play that turns heads even in October. For a team still sorting out complementary pieces around its core, the appeal is obvious: not every addition needs a big scoring role, but Cleveland can use more players who bring hustle, athleticism and real defensive upside every night. [Read more 🡒]
Mario Hezonja Is Making The Cavs Rotation Battle A Lot Harder To Ignore
Mario Hezonjas preseason with the Cavaliers has done more than just get his name back into the conversation. After spending the past several years away from the NBA, the veteran forward has looked comfortable enough in Clevelands exhibition slate to make the staff pay attention, especially with a stretch of back-to-back double-digit scoring games and a dependable look from three-point range. For a team sorting out its frontcourt mix, that kind of showing matters.
Hezonja is still working through the adjustment from the EuroLeagues rhythm to the NBAs faster pace, and that learning curve is part of why this has become such an interesting camp storyline. He has not appeared in an NBA game since 2020, yet he now looks like a real candidate to be in the opening-night rotation, which makes the battle for minutes around the power forward spot a little more crowded than it seemed a week ago. [Read more 🡒]