Round 1 foes Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley can’t escape comparisons, or expectations.
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TORONTO — It took LeVelle Moten only a few moments to understand Evan Mobley’s greatness. He just had to walk into Team USA’s training camp ahead of the 2019 Under-19 World Cup and watch Mobley work, even as he was coming back from a knee injury.
“I said, ‘That’s what it had to look like when Wilt (Chamberlain) played,’” said Moten, an assistant coach on that team, recalling the camp in Colorado Springs, Colo. “That’s how dominant he was.”
It took until the final game of the tournament for Moten to fully appreciate Scottie Barnes. Moten had put together the game plan, which included a note to not let Mali’s Abdoul Coulibaly go to his left. The starters didn’t follow instruction, so Barnes, who had offered to come off the bench in training camp, got the next crack at the assignment. Barnes immediately let Coulibaly go left, but knocked the ball out of bounds.
“I yelled at Scottie, ‘Damn it, didn’t I say (to) make the boy go left?’” Moten recalled. “And Scottie said, ‘Coach, don’t even worry about it, because this MFer ain’t gonna score no more.’ And he was talking to me — but he was saying it right in the boy’s face.”
The Americans ended up winning Barnes’ 29 minutes by 27 points in a 14-point win, securing the gold medal. Even on a team with the first five picks of the 2021 NBA Draft, plus Tyrese Haliburton, Mobley and Barnes’ gifts could not be hidden. It’s important to remember that, as they continue to nose in front of each other during their intertwined careers, including in the first-round series between their Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors, these were hyped-up players who stood out on All-Star teams of their peers. That they exist on the periphery of the NBA’s power structure shows you how special you have to be to get to the inter sanctum of the league’s transactional machinations.
Even in this series, they have not been the fulcrums, as Cleveland guards Donovan Mitchell (62 points, including 8 3s) and James Harden (50 points and 14 assists) have orchestrated a Cavaliers attack that the Raptors have been unable to stop. Most of Cleveland’s defensive attention, meanwhile, has gone toward slowing Brandon Ingram, not Barnes.
But Mobley has been a key cog in the Cavaliers taking a 2-0 lead, with Game 3 going on Thursday in Toronto. When the Raptors benched starting big man Jakob Poeltl and went to a smaller, switch-heavy lineup in the second half of Game 2, Mobley dominated. He had 11 points in the third quarter alone, using his size advantage to neutralize the Raptors’ swarming, pesky defense. He’s averaging 21 points on 77.3 percent shooting through two games.
Calf strains interrupted Mobley’s season a few times during the regular season, part of the reason the Cavaliers didn’t back up their 64-win season a year ago with another six-month waltz.
“They say development is not linear. It just doesn’t keep going like this,” said Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson, miming an undeterred ascent with his arm, before Game 2. “It doesn’t. There are going to be some downs, and I think Evan has kind of got out of that dip and is trending back to improving before our eyes and at the right.”
However, the Raptors didn’t wilt in Game 2, and Barnes was the main reason why. He had 17 points in the second half, and was in the middle of the Raptors finally able to push the pace in transition more frequently, a necessity if the Raptors are to make this a series. On a couple possessions, he went right into Mobley and fellow Cleveland big man Jarrett Allen, pushing them under the basket in the paint for buckets. That type of force is necessary for a limited offensive team.
Barnes’ 12-to-9 assist-to-turnover ratio hasn’t been sharp enough, and puts a spotlight on what he has to address in the offseason — one of his handle or his jumper has to improve measurably — and the Raptors’ overall spacing limitations, exacerbated without injured guard Immanuel Quickley.
Both, though, have highlighted the promise that they have shown since they came into the league. Can they be the beating hearts of championship contenders? That’s a different question, one both franchises will have to grapple with on different timelines.
Their careers, dating back to the draft in 2021, have lined up nicely. Mobley went third in the draft, while Barnes went fourth. Barnes edged out Mobley for Rookie of the Year in one of the closest votes for the award ever. And while Cade Cunningham has surpassed both as the guy from that draft who you’d build a team around, both are clearly good enough to be part of a solid franchise’s foundation. There are times when Barnes has seemed like the better player and others when Mobley has seemed like the bigger difference-maker, but neither has ever put the other way behind him.
That’s the tricky part of all of this, though. Barnes came into the league as the guy surrounded by veterans, joining the Pascal Siakam/Fred VanVleet/OG Anunoby core. One by one, those players left, with the Raptors trying to rebuild more in Barnes’ image: frenetic and versatile.
While Barnes’ journey to being “the guy” in Toronto has been awkward — he seemed to demur from the off-the-court aspects of the role to start, and his on-court attributes are certainly more Pippen than Jordan — his personality screams centerpiece.
“Scottie was boisterous. He was talking. He had some of that leadership ability,” said Bruce Weber, the longtime college coach who was the head coach for that Under-19 team. “Sometimes, it had to be reeled in a bit, but you’d rather have that. I always talk about, ‘Do you want to deal with Tigger or Eeyore?’ You want Tigger on your team, because he has energy and is flying around. The successful guys have that energy. That’s why you knew he’d be pretty good.”
As for Mobley?
“You knew when Scottie came into the building,” Weber said. “Evan could sneak in, even at 6-10, 6-11. He could sneak in quietly, and you wouldn’t even know he’s there.”
Perhaps because Mobley’s game was a bit more polished, the Cavaliers decided to accelerate their build right after his rookie year, trading for Mitchell. At times, Mobley has looked like the perfect emerging co-star for Mitchell, a big man who expanded his offensive game last year while winning Defensive Player of the Year.
This season, there has been some disappointment with his development, especially as his shooting has fallen off from the previous two years. Cleveland is so committed to Mitchell now that if the Cavaliers fail to make it to the conference final, you wonder if they might become impatient with Mobley’s growth and move him for a player more obviously in his prime. There’s a guy who has spent his career in Wisconsin who could be available.
That possibility, although probably slim, is more of a reflection of how precious Mitchell’s peak is to Cleveland than anything Mobley has or hasn’t done.
“I think he develops every single year,” Barnes said of Mobley before the series started. “I think he’s grown more into his body. His physicality when he’s driving the ball, being able to create for himself, and defensively, he has all the intangibles. He has super long arms, athletic, he can switch one through five. He’s great.”
Meanwhile, even though Barnes was already an All-Star in 2024, this was the year he blossomed. His defensive impact reached new heights and should earn him his first All-Defense spot — he finished fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. With the Raptors acquiring Brandon Ingram to take over the biggest share of the half-court offence that Barnes is not best suited to manage, his energy in pushing the pace, distributing the ball and playmaking on defence animated the Raptors’ surprise 46-win season.
And yet, with Barnes at the middle of things, there will be questions. How do you build a team when your best player is not your most efficient or talented scorer? That becomes a geometry question, one the Raptors are not close to solving. It was exposed during this season, and continues to be in this series.
“He’s a really good passer,” Atkinson said. “I think he’s the 96th percentile in potential assists. You’ve got to keep your eyes open. When he drives, he’s going to find shooters. I’m really impressed (by) the leap he took this year.”
None of that is to suggest the Raptors will consider moving Barnes any time soon. More likely, transaction by transaction, they will attempt to get closer to a roster that makes sense around him, not that it will be easy because of the Raptors’ other financial commitments. The roster-building mistakes the Raptors have around him, especially the contract extension given to Poeltl before this season that doesn’t kick in until 2027-28, make it possible that the Raptors will get stuck in neutral before they can maximize Barnes’ skills. Those mistakes aren’t Barnes’ fault, but they speak to the trickiness of building around him.
Cleveland’s relationship with Mobley is a little more in question only because of Mitchell’s presence and the increased stakes. Still, generally players who are as good as Mobley don’t go anywhere. The safe call is Mobley will be in Ohio for years to come.
“I would like to say they surprised me, but neither of them has,” Moten said. “Evan is who I thought he would be. Scottie is who I thought he would be. I thought, before they were 28 years old, they would both be First Team All-NBA guys. And they’re certainly on the trajectory of doing that.”
Perhaps. Both will turn just 25 this summer. In theory, they still have some evolution ahead of them. But in a league that is trending toward shorter competitive windows, teams won’t always have the time to see their young players’ futures out — even if those players are as good as Barnes or Mobley. Great young players have never had less time to reach their ceilings.
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Eric Koreen is a senior writer covering the Raptors and the NBA. Previously, he has written for the National Post, Canadian Press, Sportsnet and Complex.
