3 reasons why the Cleveland Cavaliers shouldn’t trade Jarrett Allen

The Cleveland Cavaliers need to keep Jarrett Allen.

So the new trend going around the world of blogging is fantasy-booking trades involving All-Star center Jarrett Allen. Just about everyone has come up with a hackneyed idea that sees Allen going to some team for a player that isn’t nearly as good as he is. Made worse by the fact that each trade is about bringing in “scoring”. The Cavs need scoring, no one is denying that, but the Cavs didn’t have scoring all year. They were among the worst teams in the league in that area, but they still won 51 games.

So the answer to needing more points is damaging our defense? You know, the one thing that kept the Cavs in the top four of the East all year? The Cavs have other players they can trade to upgrade the offense, not to mention the mid-level exception, which they could use to sign a player or two.

It seems to me that this is a knee-jerk reaction by fans who don’t grasp why this team was as good as it was all year. Damaging the defense, the best in the league, by the way, is out of the question, so no, trading Allen isn’t really an option. And we’re going to go further into why trading Allen isn’t an option.

He wasn’t the issue in the playoffs

Jarrett Allen didn’t look great in the final few games of the New York Knicks series, but he was also playing 40-plus minutes back to back to back, and considering his size, that’s not really conducive to a successful outing.

The reason the Cavs failed in the playoffs is due to their key playmakers, which saw Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland become very mediocre against the Knicks’ defense. Garland wasn’t taking enough shots, and both men were just throwing up junk from behind the arc. Mitchell, especially, was terrible during the series. Especially from three.

The Cavs built their entire team around Mitchell and Garland this year, and it was good enough to get them 51 wins. When you invest that type of money and energy into guys like them, they have to produce. It’s that simple, and they didn’t produce. Allen can only do so much with his skillset, and for most of the series, he was exactly as advertised.

Garland and Mitchell, not so much. Since those are the two guys who the team is designed around, they need to be better. If they play better, we’re not talking about Allen at all.