Jarrett Allen has become a familiar summer name in trade chatter, but the Cavaliers keep getting the same reminder once the games start: he gives them a lot to like.
He protects the rim, finishes at the basket, works without demanding the offense run through him and brings the sort of presence every team wants in a locker room and on the floor. That combination has made him easy to speculate about from the outside and hard to replace from the inside.
Allen, though, isn’t spending much energy on the rumor mill.
“You just hear about it, you understand that it’s a possibility and you just have to live with it,” Allen said, as relayed by Ashish Mathur of Roundtable .
“At the end of the day, it’s not my choice about where I want to go. It’s not my choice about a lot of the things I do in my job. I just have to go out there and be the best player I can be and in the summer I have to focus on improving even more.”
That’s a steady answer from a player who has clearly had practice with the subject. Allen has heard this before, and he’s not letting it spill into his daily routine.
“So I hear the noise, I listen to it, I understand it, but I don’t let it impact my life on or off the court,” he said.
On the court, the case for keeping him is easy to see. Allen is coming off a career year, posting 15.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists while shooting 63.8 percent from the field. He remains a key piece of Cleveland’s defense and a dependable option near the rim.
The Cavaliers value that. His teammates do, too. So do plenty of fans who watch him every night.
Still, the Allen-Evan Mobley pairing has been a talking point for years, especially when the discussion turns to spacing and the best way to shape Cleveland’s frontcourt. Those are real basketball questions. They just don’t automatically add up to a move.
From the Cavs’ side, dealing Allen would not be simple. Equal value would be tough to find, and replacing what he brings would mean more than just adding another big body who can finish a lob. His defense, his familiarity with the group and his willingness to embrace a role that doesn’t always get the spotlight all count for something.
Cleveland has championship ambitions and an expensive roster, so scrutiny is going to follow every major player if the team comes up short. But moving Allen just because his name keeps showing up in trade proposals is not exactly a blueprint.
The Cavs know what they have. The harder part would be finding something better.
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