It’s no secret that if the Cleveland Cavaliers want to take a step forward this season, they’re going to need to rely on internal improvement following a quiet offseason of roster changes.
There’s perhaps no better candidate to take a step forward than big man Evan Mobley, and it appears that new head coach Kenny Atkinson wants to increase the 23-year-old’s usage.
“New coach Kenny Atkinson continually has stressed increasing Evan Mobley ‘usage,'” wrote Terry Pluto of Cleveland.com. “In English, that means having the ball in his hands more often. But what does Mobley do with it? In practice, when Mobley brought the ball up the court after grabbing a rebound, Atkinson pushed the 23-year-old to go quickly with ‘eyes on the rim.’ Go to the hoop. You can pass, but think about scoring and putting pressure on the defense.”
Not long after Mobley entered the NBA, many people started to see him as a player with superstar potential. But since his rookie season, his offensive growth has come slowly, perhaps due in part to his usage, role and a lack of aggressiveness.
In Mobley’s first NBA season, he took 12 shots per game. Then, the Cavs traded for star guard Donovan Mitchell, a move that impacted the roles of players up and down the roster.
In Mobley’s case, he ended up averaging 12 shots per game once again in his sophomore season instead of seeing that number go up. Then, in his third season, he actually took a career-low 11 shots per game, a somewhat curious development.
When it comes to Mobley’s usage percentage itself, it has largely stayed the same during his three seasons in the NBA. It was 20.4 in his rookie season, 20.2 in his second season and 20.6 in his third season.
Evidently, Atkinson wants to get the former lottery pick more involved. Atkinson has a reputation for his player development, and the Cavs might have hired him partly because of the impact he could have on Mobley.
Mobley averaged 15.7 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game last season while shooting 58.0 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from deep. His 3-point shot was an encouraging trend, even if it was a small sample size (1.2 attempts per game).
Big things could be in store for Mobley this coming season, and if that’s the case, the Cavs could end up becoming bigger factors in the Eastern Conference after they finally won a playoff series last season.
