{"id":159169,"date":"2025-09-21T16:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T16:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159169\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T16:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T16:31:07","slug":"cleveland-cavaliers-star-could-become-mvp-candidate-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/159169\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers star could become MVP candidate soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> forward Evan Mobley is going into his fifth season with the team as he is slowly emerging into one of the best players in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Bleacher Report writer Greg Swartz believes Mobley can become an MVP contender<\/a> in the next couple of years.<\/p>\n

“At age 23, Mobley won Defensive Player of the Year, was named to the All-NBA second team and reached his first All-Star game. He also\u00a0finished 10th in MVP voting,” Swartz wrote.<\/p>\n

“New Cavs head coach Kenny Atkinson did wonders for Mobley’s development<\/a>, especially on the offensive end. Mobley made a total of 67 three-pointers in his first three years in the NBA (on just 26.5 percent shooting). In one year under Atkinson, Mobley splashed 85 at a 37.0 percent clip.<\/p>\n

“Increasing his offensive volume is going to be key to Mobley winning MVP one day, as he’s already been crowned the NBA’s best defender.”<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland<\/p>\n

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley goes for a rebound against Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam. \/ Ken Blaze-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Mobley is already the league’s best defender, but in order for him to become a true MVP contender, he will have to get better on the offensive end of the floor.<\/p>\n

Mobley averaged a career-high 18.5 points per game last season with the Cavs and has improved his scoring output in each year he’s been in the league with the exception of the 2023-24 campaign, where he missed 32 games due to injury.<\/p>\n

Should Mobley get better in that regard, he will only continue to get more recognition from the rest of the league.<\/p>\n

“His usage rate jumped to a\u00a0career-high 23.2 percent\u00a0last season. With Darius Garland and Max Strus both projected to miss the beginning of the 2025-26 season due to injury, Mobley should get far more offensive touches alongside Donovan Mitchell,” Swartz wrote.<\/p>\n

“If Mitchell is still playing next to Mobley with the Cavs in five years, the All-NBA guard will be 34 years old. There’s a strong chance that Mobley will take over as the No. 1 scoring option between now and then.<\/p>\n

“An elite defender who grew his offensive game exponentially last season, Mobley will be a key name to watch in the MVP race moving forward.”<\/p>\n

The upcoming season is a big one for Mobley and the Cavs. They are trying to figure out how to improve from their 64-win campaign to make some noise in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

If Mobley continues to get better, the Cavs will remain a key factor in the Eastern Conference contender race<\/a>, which is probably what the former No. 3 overall pick prefers over MVP recognition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley is going into his fifth season with the team as he is slowly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-159169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}