During Wednesday\u2019s wire-to-wire victory in Charlotte<\/a>, the bouncy 25-year-old forward logged more minutes than any other reserve. He played the sixth most among all players on Cleveland\u2019s roster \u2014 the kind of workload that highlights Tomlin\u2019s precipitous rise.<\/p>\nIn 21 minutes, he tallied six points and nine rebounds, including seven on the offensive end. The Cavs had 17 offensive boards and 25 second-chance points \u2014 two critical stats that helped buoy an erratic, turnover-prone offense clearly missing Darius Garland (sprained right great toe) and Sam Merrill (right hand sprain). <\/p>\n
With embattled De\u2019Andre Hunter \u2014 the supposed second unit anchor \u2014 proving to be ineffective yet again, going 1 of 6 from the field and committing four turnovers in 13 lousy minutes, Tomlin\u2019s activity became a necessity. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been that way all season. <\/p>\n
Even though Tomlin is raw and still makes plenty of mistakes, his hustle is relentless, his spirit is infectious and his size and switchability give Cleveland a different look on the defensive end. At the very least, Tomlin has proven he belongs. And, to this point, he has outplayed his team-friendly, inexpensive contract. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe creates energy for us,\u201d Evan Mobley said of Tomlin. \u201cEvery time he\u2019s on the floor, something good happens, the ball ends up in his hands. When guys have knacks for that, they get more and more minutes, and it\u2019s paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n
An afterthought to start the season, seemingly buried on the depth chart, beneath the likes of Mobley, Hunter, offseason acquisition Larry Nance Jr. and sometimes-starter Dean Wade, Tomlin has become a mainstay of the every-night rotation. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis motor is elite,\u201d Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said. \u201cHe\u2019s so long that he gets these loose balls that other guys can\u2019t get. I\u2019m just so excited about him. He fits the prototype of the modern NBA wing. I love that he is firing up those open 3s where his feet are set. We found ourselves a real player. He\u2019s been huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tomlin is averaging 6.2 points on 47.5% from the field and 21.9% from 3-point range to go with 3.3 rebounds. With him on the court, Cleveland has a net rating of 5.1. With him off, that net rating drops to 1.2. He has logged at least 16 minutes in all but one game this month. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s only been playing basketball for five years,\u201d Donovan Mitchell added. \u201cThere are certain things that are going to come natural to [some other guys] that aren\u2019t going to come natural to him. For him to be able to do this in the best league in the world and still figure it out, that just shows how much work he puts in. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, just continuing to be his biggest supporter. He got down on himself a couple times and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t care. Keep being aggressive on both ends of the floor.\u2019 He has done that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will likely earn him a full-time contract. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 It\u2019s the latest edition of Hey, Chris! The submissions for this post came from Subtext…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,69731,305,193,69732,3846,6],"class_list":["post-552718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers","tag-charlotte-hornets-2025-2026","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-cleveland-cavaliers-2025-2026","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115937590877841252","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}