The Lakers have already taken a swing at upgrading their defense this offseason, but the conversation around their front line clearly isn’t over.
Los Angeles went after Walker Kessler in a sign-and-trade with the Utah Jazz, and the logic behind that pursuit is easy to see. The Lakers want more resistance at the rim, more size, and more players who can handle the kind of bigs that keep showing up in the Western Conference. That’s why a new idea involving Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Jarrett Allen has started to make the rounds.
Joe Cervenka laid out the case this way: “If the hometown king is actually making his triumphant return to the shores of Lake Erie, someone has to serve as the structural salary ballast. Jarrett Allen remains an elite drop-coverage anchor and a clinical rim-finisher, but Cleveland’s front office must sacrifice high-end frontcourt utility to absorb a historic salary-cap footprint. For a Lakers team looking to instantly redefine its physical baseline in a post-LeBron environment, Allen represents the perfect modern defensive centerpiece,”
Allen would fit the same broad mold as Kessler. Both are shot-blockers, both defend at a high level, and both bring the kind of small, winning details that matter over the course of a season.
The question for the Lakers is what happens on the other end if they load up on that type of center. Even with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves on the floor, there’s still a concern about how much offensive spacing and creation the team would be giving up if both of those defensive bigs were involved at the same time.
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Cavs Fans Just Got A Reality Check On The Latest LeBron Buzz
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The pushback came just as fast. Brian Windhorst said he had not heard the story from a credible source, while Sam Amico left the door cracked just enough to keep the speculation alive. Greens decision to decline his player option only added fuel to the conversation, but the chatter still feels like the kind of offseason noise that can race ahead of the facts long before anyone around the league is ready to confirm anything. [Read more 🡒]
Donovan Mitchell Just Changed Everything About The LeBron Reunion Talk
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From there, the conversation naturally turns to how much room there would be for another high-usage name to fit into the picture. Cleveland can sell continuity now, but any serious reunion talk would have to account for the basketball fit as much as the star appeal, and that is where the intrigue really starts to build. [Read more 🡒]
Cavs Fans May Hate How Real This Franchise Shifting Debate Feels
The NBAs investigation into the circumstances around Kawhi Leonards move to Toronto has put an old transaction back under the microscope, and that matters in Cleveland because it has revived a very uncomfortable kind of conversation: what a franchise will pay when it believes a star is worth the risk. In that context, the Cavaliers have been floated as a team that could at least think about a massive Evan Mobley deal with the Raptors, one built around the kind of draft-pick and player haul Toronto once showed it was willing to assemble for Leonard.
It is still only a speculative framework, and the leagues investigation has to run its course before anyone can even pretend the market is settled. But the idea itself says plenty about how the Cavs are being viewed right now, with Mobleys age, defensive value and long-term contract making him the sort of centerpiece another team would need to empty the chest for. Whether Toronto would ever go there is the unresolved thread, and it is the kind of front-office debate that can linger long after the headlines move on. [Read more 🡒]