The Cavaliers appear to be trendsetters.
The Cleveland Cavaliers tried an experiment four years ago: What would happen if you played three bigs at the same time? That idea was born out of necessity after jumping up in the lottery which allowed them to draft Evan Mobley a few months after trading for Jarrett Allen.
That experiment has evolved since then, but it’s clear that having a frontcourt with elite and versatile defenders like Mobley and Allen will give you an incredibly high baseline on a nightly basis. That blueprint appears to be one of the inspirations for the Dallas Mavericks deciding to flip Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis.
“I think if you look at the Cleveland Cavaliers, that’s what you’re going to see,” said Mavs general manager Nico Harrison to The Dallas Morning News on Sunday morning. “Anthony’s probably going to finish games at the five, but you’re going to see those guys play together. And when Lakers won, he played the four.”
Despite evidence to the contrary when they played the Cavs on Sunday afternoon, the Mavs have been good defensively the season. They entered the contest with the 11th-best defensive rating (113.6). Swapping Dončić for Davis should theoretically help that.
It’s difficult to justify trading Dončić away at this point in his career. I’m certainly not going to try to do that.
That said, before this trade, there weren’t many teams that had the personnel to duplicate the Cavs’ success by playing two defensive-minded bigs like this. The Mavs are one of those teams that could do so now.
A front line consisting of Davis, Dereck Lively II, and Daniel Gafford will be formidable defensively, combined with some good defensive pieces on the wing. Whether or not the offensive side of the ball can work without Dončić is another question.
The league seems to be shifting more defensive-minded. The Cavs have been a defensive-first team in the past (less so this season) and have the most wins in the conference. The Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, and Memphis Grizzlies are the top three teams in the Western Conference largely due to their defense.
While this is a questionable move—to say it mildly—it does show how far the Cavs frontcourt has come and how important defense is right now.
What was originally thought of as a misguided experiment is not a formula that teams are trying to copy. We’ll see over the coming months whether the Mavs can replicate any of Cleveland’s success over the final few months of the season.