CLEVELAND, Ohio — When the Cavs’ championship aspirations crashed in the playoffs last season, many pointed to their frontcourt’s perceived lack of intensity as a culprit. The talent of Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen is undeniable, but that final gear — the playoff intensity that separates good teams from champions — seemed missing.
Meanwhile, down in San Antonio, Victor Wembanyama spent his offseason writing the kind of playbook that Cleveland’s bigs should be stealing from.
The 21-year-old phenom trained with Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett, and even traveled to China to work with Shaolin monks. He sharpened his footwork, expanded his mental arsenal, and tested his body against the kind of grueling preparation that readies you for 82 games and then some.
Wembanyama is already a problem for the rest of the league. Now? He’s a problem with Olajuwon’s low-post wisdom, Garnett’s psychological warfare, and the discipline of monks who break rocks with their fists. Good luck with that.
Mobley and Allen, by comparison, are soft-spoken, almost gentle giants. Both have put in their own individual work this summer, but there’s a difference between gym reps and experience earned in the company of all-time greats.
That’s the kind of competitive wisdom you can’t simulate — Olajuwon teaching the art of footwork, Garnett drilling into your skull the importance of mindset, and the monks showing how the mind can push the body through fatigue and punishment. That cocktail of experience could’ve been exactly what the Cavs’ frontcourt needed.
On a recent Wine and Gold Talk podcast, cleveland.com columnist Jimmy Watkins made a compelling case that Mobley doesn’t need technical refinement as much as he needs a complete mentality shift — and Kevin Garnett might be the perfect mentor to provide it.
“If I were in a vacuum, if I were to send Evan Mobley to the school of any former player, I would send him to the Kevin Garnett school because Tim Duncan is probably going to teach him a lot of the things that Evan Mobley already knows and already does,” Watkins argued, challenging the conventional wisdom that Mobley should model himself after the reserved Spurs legend.
“Kevin Garnett will be blunt. You need to stop doing this. You need to start doing this. And he’ll add some cuss words to it.”
The discussion stemmed from a listener question about how to develop the aggressive, tone-setting, physical play that seems to be lacking in Cleveland’s frontcourt. While sports psychologists and various training methods were mentioned, Watkins zeroed in on the transformative potential of learning directly from one of the NBA’s most feared competitors.
That blunt edge, Watkins argued, is the very thing Mobley lacks.
“He needs maybe a little kick in the ass from one of the greatest players of all time. A player that he’s been compared to several times throughout his career,” Watkins added.
Garnett’s legendary intensity — punching stanchions, trash-talking opponents, and maintaining a near-maniacal focus — helped transform him from a supremely talented player into an NBA champion. For a Cavaliers team that’s been knocked out of the playoffs partly due to a perceived lack of mental toughness, the KG blueprint could be transformative.
But here’s the larger point: while Mobley and Allen quietly prepare for next season, Wembanyama has already armed himself with the voices and lessons of legends. Mobley and Allen are good enough to dominate on talent alone, but if Cleveland wants its frontcourt to stop being labeled “soft” when it matters most, they can’t just rely on skill development and team systems. They need to pursue the fire, the edge, that only players with experience unlocking it can give.
As the Cavaliers look toward another season with championship aspirations, the development of their frontcourt remains crucial. Technical refinement certainly matters, but as this podcast discussion — and Wembanyama’s example — highlights, perhaps the missing ingredient is the kind of competitive fire that only comes from learning at the feet of the greats.
Here’s the podcast for this week:
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