Evan Mobley Says Award Snubs Added 'Edge' Entering Cavaliers Season

Victor Wembanyama won the 2025-26 Defensive Player of the Year award in April as the first unanimous choice in the award's history. A year earlier, the Hakeem Olajuwon Trophy had gone to Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Mobley was not among this year's finalists. Chet Holmgren of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Ausar Thompson of the Detroit Pistons joined Wembanyama, who led the league in blocks at 3.08 per game for a third straight season.

Mobley also did not make the All-Star team, an All-NBA team, or an All-Defensive team in 2025-26 after making all three in 2024-25. The All-NBA first team this year was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama, Cade Cunningham, Luka Dončić, and Nikola Jokić.

Mobley said Monday at media day at Rocket Arena that he spent the summer on what Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson and president of basketball operations Koby Altman have been preaching.

"That's part of the edge," Mobley said. "You always want to see yourself get some of those awards and stuff, especially when you feel like it's [deserved]. But I know what I have to do, and that's what I'm focused on this year."

"So throughout the whole summer, I've just been working on all the things that I felt like I needed to work on, and with some of what Kenny and Koby have been preaching as well," Mobley continued. "And I think I'm putting all the pieces together, and I'm really excited for this year to make another jump and be the best version of myself that I haven't even seen yet."

Last season's line was 18.2 points per game with 9.0 rebounds and 3.6 assists over 65 games. In his DPOY season, Mobley made his first All-Star team and set a career high in scoring, according to The Associated Press.

He received 35 first-place votes that year, 10 more than runner-up Dyson Daniels of the Atlanta Hawks, and became the first Cavalier to win the award, CBS Sports reported.

Mobley also signed a rookie max extension in the summer of 2024, and ESPN reported that the DPOY win raised its value.

Mobley's summer started with time off before he gradually ramped up his work.

"All summer I've been working hard. I had a good plan set up throughout the summer," Mobley explained. "Took some time off at first and gradually started building up. Been working a lot on my offense game and where I'm gonna go to when I get to certain spots and stuff like that. But yeah, definitely have an edge this year."

The last question of his session came back to the same subject. Mobley would not give away which moves he has settled on.

"I would say getting my go-to moves, or when I get the ball in certain spots, knowing what I'm probably going to get to," Mobley said. "That was like a big focus for me this summer."

He kept his favorites to himself, telling reporters they would have to find out and see.

Mobley has built his own inner circle for that work. He said he tunes out opinions from outside it.

"I try not to pay attention to that anyway, but where you can just focus on yourself, focus on what you need to work on and what you want to work on without having too many outside opinions and all this, it definitely helps a lot," Mobley said. "It helps you focus and really block it, and I feel like I've been able to do that this summer."

"I feel like you just focus on who you trust," Mobley continued. "You have your team around you. You have people that have been doing this for years, and you've been working with them for years, so you focus on trusting them and trusting that process and drowning everyone else out."

Donovan Mitchell spoke about Mobley at his own availability Monday. He said the masses do not understand that progress is not always linear.

In the playoffs, Mobley scored in double figures in 16 of Cleveland's 18 games. Cleveland beat Toronto and Detroit in seven games each before the New York Knicks swept the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals.

Mobley has been put on notice by an NBA analyst entering his sixth season. Altman said Friday that the Cavaliers improved over the summer.

In the locker room, teammates call him Four, after his jersey number.

The Cavaliers arrive in Spain on Tuesday. Practice at The Embassy in Fuengirola starts Wednesday.