It’s just been three games in, but at this point, it’s hard to deny that Cleveland Cavaliers rising star Evan Mobley hasn’t been able to take the leap many expect him to make now that he’s in his second year with the Cavs — at least not yet. He hasn’t been bad, but Mobley also hasn’t exactly been outstanding either.
On Sunday against the Washington Wizards, Mobley scored just 10 points on 2-of-7 shooting, despite logging 37 minutes of action. He did have seven rebounds, two assists, two steals, and a block, though. However, the 21-year-old committed two more turnovers, bringing up his tally to eight in three games.
Cavs head coach JB Bickerstaff seems to have already figured out the solution to Mobley’s quiet start to the season. The 43-year-old shot-caller believes it’s all about running more of the offense through Mobley (via Chris Fedor of cleveland.com):
“We’ve gotta get him more involved,” Cavs coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “There are some things that we’re still working through. He’s so skilled and so talented and we want him involved in our offense in a bunch of different ways. Evan’s the type of player that if defenses load to him, he’ll pass the ball 100 times in a row. If that makes us win, that’s what he’s gonna do. We have to do a better job diversifying his opportunities. We need to get him more (shots). That’s on us as coaches, that’s on his teammates as well. We have put him in more positions. It’s not the number of shots, it’s the quality of shots that he’s getting. That’s our focus.”
For his part, Mobley himself acknowledged his rather lackluster start to the campaign. However, he is also confident that he’s going to get much better sooner rather than later:
“I’m just going to stay consistent with it,” Mobley said following shootaround Wednesday morning. “I know shots are going to start falling and I’m going to be in a better position to take those shots as well. I’ve just got to stick with it. It’s only three games in. We’ve still got a lot more to go.”
After a breakout rookie year, Mobley is now getting more attention from opposing teams. At times, this comes in the form of raising their physicality against the 7-foot power forward. This has been somewhat of a roadblock for Mobley thus far, but he also knows that this is something that he should be able to overcome in the near future:
“I feel like that’s just a mental thing. I’ve got to go through that and finish through the contact,” Mobley said. “We also have so many weapons on the floor as well, so it’s hard to give one person that attention. We’ve just got to work through that and notice when they do double and attack from where we can.”
The Cavs will be in action on Wednesday against the Orlando Magic, and Mobley will be hoping to make some noise as Cleveland looks to improve to 3-1 to start the season.