When attempting to explain the potential of Evan Mobley, Kenny Atkinson has been known to invoke the name of an all-time great. “Magic Johnson,” says Atkinson, the Cavaliers’ head coach. “Sometimes, he’ll be playing, and he’ll look like him.” An example: In mid-March, Mobley yanked down a rebound early in the second quarter of Cleveland’s game against Memphis. He started the fast break, instantly switching from 6' 11", 215-pound defensive menace to an impossibly long playmaker. As the Cavs’ wings spaced the floor, Mobley stopped at the top of the key and buried a 25-footer. “If he starts hitting that regularly,” says Atkinson. “Yeesh.”
When Atkinson interviewed for Cleveland’s head coaching job last year, Mobley’s development wasn’t part of the discussion. It was the discussion. “Seventy percent of it,” says Atkinson. “Maybe more.” Three years in, Mobley was already a terrific player. A reliable, 15-point-ish scorer on one end, a shot-blocking, switch-busting, omnipresent defender on the other. The Cavs, though, believed there was more. If Atkinson wanted the job, there needed to be a clear plan to unlock that potential.
The root of Atkinson’s pitch was simple: Get him the ball. Mobley’s usage rate last season (20.0) ranked him 130th among starters, per NBA.com, sandwiched between John Collins and Vasilije Micic. Atkinson pointed to other ballhandling big men—Domantas Sabonis, Bam Adebayo—as models for what Mobley could become. Atkinson saw Mobley as a pick-and-roll ballhandler. As a floor spacer. As a trailing big, where he could make plays in the middle of the floor.
Mobley, Atkinson says, has been even better than he imagined. When Atkinson arrived in Cleveland, his knowledge of Mobley was limited: film study, plus the handful of times Atkinson, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant with Golden State, went up against him. “Two days into training camp I’m like, Holy s---,” says Atkinson. Mobley’s ballhandling abilities, Atkinson immediately noted, were more advanced than he expected.
Growing up, Mobley’s father, Eric, pushed his son to develop guard skills. Atkinson has driven Mobley to use them. “I get mad at him when he passes the ball after he rebounds,” says Atkinson. “Every time he gets it, I’m like, Evan, push. Evan, push. And he’s still throwing it out. I’m like, Do you want to outlet it to Ty Jerome or do you want to keep it, make a play? This is where he’s got to become a little more selfish.”
He trusts Mobley in those situations. “He rarely makes a bad decision,” says Atkinson. “I think his IQ is nine out of 10.” Mobley’s assist numbers have ticked up deeper into the season. He averaged 2.8 per game in January. In February, it was 3.8. In April, it jumped to 4.4. It isn’t just the playmaking. It’s the flair—the Magic-esque panache with which he does it. “He’ll have these handle moments where he’s behind the back twice, between the legs, and you’re like, Whoa, he’s got that?” says Atkinson. “Now is he Magic Johnson–creative, like that level? I do think he can get there if we keep empowering him. But he already reads the game really well.”
Empowering Mobley has been a collective effort. For it to work, his teammates had to embrace it. The Cavs won 48 games last season. They advanced to the second round of the playoffs. Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen have résumés that include All-Star appearances. Donovan Mitchell has been in the mix for MVP. It would have been easy to maintain the status quo. Instead, Cleveland’s vets not only embraced a bigger role for the 23-year-old Mobley—they also pushed for it.
“I would think if I’m a star, it would be like, ‘Hey, let’s sit down. Let’s sit down and see how I can get the ball more,’ ” says Atkinson. “And their first thing to me was, ‘What’s our next step?’ And this is all of them, Donovan, DG, Jarrett, they’re like, ‘Evan’s our next step.’ That’s selfless. Without the buy-in of those guys, it doesn’t work. Everyone in the organization gets it. Everyone was on board.”
In February, the Cavs flipped Caris LeVert and Georges Niang to Atlanta for De’Andre Hunter, a deal that added a versatile three-point shooter while creating more opportunity for Mobley to absorb playmaking responsibilities. Cleveland won its first 13 games with Hunter in the lineup. Mobley’s numbers during that stretch: 19.2 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. In the aftermath of the trade Mobley was asked what the ceiling was for the Cavaliers. His answer: “A championship.”
More will be asked of Mobley to get there. Defensively he’s already an established anchor. Cavs television analyst and former All-Star forward Austin Carr has called him “a savant.” Offensively Mobley has increased his production across the board. And the team believes there is still more to come. More assists. More threes. More communicating on defense, adding Draymond Green–level chatter to his Draymond-level skills. In a potential conference finals matchup with Boston, the Mobley-Kristaps Porzingis matchup could determine the series.
“I love that he’s starting to get out of his skin a little bit and starting to expand his game,” says Atkinson. “That’s that confidence. He’s seeing he has the skill and the ability to do this.”
When he gets there, it will be special. Perhaps even … magic.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Evan Mobley Has the Magic Touch for East Top Seed Cavaliers.
