The Cavaliers made a real move to sharpen their wing depth with the addition of Peyton Watson, and after his breakout 2025-26 season, there’s plenty of buzz around what he brings to the starting five. That excitement picked up even more after his introductory press conference. But even with all that attention on the perimeter, Cleveland can’t lose sight of what helped drive its 2025-26 postseason success: getting the big men involved.
That matters especially for Jarrett Allen. However much Watson changes the look of the rotation, Allen still needs to be part of the offense and not fade into the background. There’s real appeal in the idea of Evan Mobley becoming an offensive hub from the elbow or high post, but Allen can’t become the forgotten piece in 2026-27.
James Harden’s track record with frontcourt players is hard to ignore. Over the years, he’s helped lift plenty of big men, including Clint Capela, Ivica Zubac, Nic Claxton and even Joel Embiid. He did something similar with Allen in their limited time together last season.
In 13 games alongside Harden, Allen averaged 18.4 points and 9.5 rebounds while shooting 70.5% from the field. In the 43 games without Harden on the floor, he averaged 14.4 points and 8.2 rebounds and shot 61.6%.
The difference wasn’t just volume. Allen was simply getting more chances to matter from one possession to the next, and the offense was finding him more often.
That showed up in his touches, which climbed from 35.8 before Harden’s arrival to 41.1 after it. In the postseason, though, that number dropped, and that played a role in some of Cleveland’s playoff issues.
Watson’s arrival could make touches even harder for Allen to come by in certain lineups. But that doesn’t mean Cleveland should push him to the side. There are still clean ways to keep him involved.
One obvious path is using him as a rim-runner, especially while Cleveland staggers its stars and looks for the right balance across the starting group. The Harden-Allen pairing can still work in lineups where Allen is the lone big and the floor is spaced with shooters.
When Harden isn’t on the court, Cleveland can tap into Allen’s passing from the elbow, something that showed up often during the 2023-24 season when Mobley and former Cavalier Darius Garland were out. He sees the floor well enough, and he has a good feel for the game. That opens the door for more dribble hand-offs with Sam Merrill and more big-to-big passing.
There’s also the midrange shot, an area where Allen has long been reliable. And there have even been rumblings about a perimeter shot after a recent Instagram post showed the Texas product taking triples. If that ever becomes real, it would help keep him involved and could make him more playable in closing lineups.
Watson may have changed the equation a bit, but he shouldn’t change the team’s identity. Cleveland still has a strength in its frontcourt, and the message is simple: feed Jarrett Allen.
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Jarrett Allen Looms Over Cavs' Long-Term Title Push
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Jarrett Allen sits at the center of that conversation because of what he means to the current lineup and what his future might look like if the season does not match the teams expectations. Some around the league believe Allen could emerge as a trade candidate, though any move of that sort would also push Mobley into more time at center, a shift that would change both the rotation and the way the Cavaliers imagine their long-term title push. [Read more 🡒]