Cavs’ Jarrett Allen Drawing Strong Interest From Pelicans, But Nothing Doing On That Front

June 16, 2024

Former Cavaliers GM David Griffin will always be revered in Cleveland. After all, he was the man in charge of assembling the 2016 championship roster.

But now, he’s the head of basketball operations with the New Orleans Pelicans. He’s done a nice job building a competitive roster there, too. But it seems he may be turning to current Cavaliers president of basketball ops Koby Altman for some potential help on the frontline. At least, that’s what the reports say.

Per Christian Clark of NOLA.com, the Pelicans have shown “significant interest” in Cavs center Jarrett Allen, “but have been unable to pry him away.”

Neither of those things is a surprise — the Pelicans’ interest, nor the Cavs’ desire to hang on to Allen.

For starters, Allen is a double-double machine and doesn’t need the ball to help offensively. In fact, it’s pretty evident he doesn’t even care if he gets the ball. Yet he set the franchise record for consecutive double-doubles, anyway.

This past season, he averaged a career-high 16.5 points, as well as 10.5 rebounds, and shot 63 percent from the field.

Defensively, he and Evan Mobley are forces at the basket. For years, the Cavs had been looking for rim protection. Now they have two of the best in the NBA on the floor at the same time.

Translation: There’s a reason everyone else in the NBA would love to have a center such as Allen. That list very much seems to include the Pelicans.

But as we relayed here, Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell reportedly wants the Cavs to keep Allen. And Mitchell is up for a contract extension. But there’s more reasons for Cleveland to keep Allen than that, because if you trade him, suddenly you have a hole to fill.

The Cavs know that and Allen isn’t likely going anywhere — no matter how hard old friend Griffin and others try.