NBA legend Charles Barkley admitted during a recent podcast appearance that he’s disappointed by the play of Cleveland Cavaliers big man Jarrett Allen on a yearly basis, seemingly because he thinks Allen is capable of offering much more than he has provided.
“The one guy that drive me crazy — and I’ve been waitin’ on him — I’ve been braggin’ about this dude for five years, and he disappoints me every year: Jarrett Allen,” Barkley said. “I thought he’d be a 20-10 guy and an All-Star by now. He should be the second option on that team, behind — he’s the second-best player on that team. People automatically go to [Evan] Mobley.
“… When I watch them play, when Jarrett Allen plays well, that’s when they play their best. They’ve got to do a much better job — it should be Donovan [Mitchell] and Jarrett Allen — one and two — and everybody else get to eat after that.
“… He’s the only guy who gon’ get you easy baskets because if you look at Donovan and [Darius] Garland, they’re both undersized guards. They have to work so hard. They use so much energy because they so undersized, and they’re undersized on the defensive end, which wears them down even more. That’s why I think they get hurt a lot of times — they have to be at full-blown energy all the time.
“But the other one guy who…I said, ‘Man, this guy, he got so much talent. He got a great body. He can play against big guys. He’s athletic enough to play wing guys, and he — they can’t guard him in the post ’cause he’s too big.’ So, he’s the one guy in my opinion that if Cleveland’s gonna ever get to the next level, it’s gotta be him.”
Allen, who does happen to be a one-time All-Star, might not have averaged 20 points per game last season like Barkley seems to think he should have, but the 26-year-old is still on the heels of arguably his best scoring season in the NBA so far.
The center averaged a career-high 16.5 points per contest in 77 games played with Cleveland in the 2023-24 regular season. Perhaps just as impressive as the sheer volume of points he racked up was the efficiency with which he put the ball through the hoop.
Allen converted an impressive 63.4 percent of his shots from the field on 10.6 field-goal attempts per game. To put his field-goal percentage in perspective, Daniel Gafford, Rudy Gobert and Ivica Zubac were the lone three qualified players who shot a higher percentage from the floor a season ago.
But if Allen wants a bigger role on the offensive end of the floor moving forward, he may have to expand his scoring repertoire. A whopping 478 of his 819 field-goal attempts throughout the 2023-24 regular season came directly at the rim. Plus, he took a grand total of only 24 shots from 16-plus feet away from the basket, with just four of those looks finding the bottom of the net.
In addition, Allen hasn’t proven to be someone who can consistently create his own offense sans the help of a teammate. In the regular season, 82.3 percent of Allen’s baskets stemmed from assists, and that number rose all the way up to 96.0 percent in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
However, one could argue that Allen’s top priority heading into the new season should be to simply stay healthy rather than obtaining a larger role on offense. He missed much of the Cavaliers’ playoff run last season — which came to an end in the second round — with a rib injury and didn’t see the court at all in the team’s second-round series versus the Boston Celtics.
All in all, the big man perhaps isn’t someone folks can rely on for 20 points and 10 rebounds every night, but he’s an important part of the Cavaliers on both ends of the floor.
