Jarrett Allen looks back at his Nets rookie year under Kenny Atkinson: ‘You learn to work’

Jarrett Allen spent Saturday night against the team that drafted him, and before tipoff he looked back at the rookie year that, in his telling, taught him how to work. In a Rookie Tales interview with the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ team site, the 28-year-old center described a Brooklyn apprenticeship under the same coach he plays for now, Kenny Atkinson.

The timing gave the conversation an edge. Hours later, Allen was one of the best players on the floor as Cleveland beat Brooklyn 125-121 at Rocket Arena for its first win of the season. He scored 21 points on 7-of-8 shooting, including a three-pointer, made 6 of 8 free throws, and added 8 rebounds, 2 steals and a block in 27 minutes. That followed 14 points and 7 rebounds in Thursday’s 114-106 opening loss in Philadelphia, a game he had been questionable for with right patellar tendinopathy (Game Center).

Same coach, quieter sideline

Allen arrived in Brooklyn as the 22nd pick of the 2017 draft out of Texas and joined a rebuilding team in Atkinson’s second season on the bench. He remembered a coach who was louder and more animated than the one Cleveland sees today, a young head coach trying to get every detail right, and said he assumed at the time that all NBA coaches were like that.

What has not changed, in Allen’s view, is how Atkinson handles young players. He called him excellent with rookies, said he is even better at it now, and recalled daily gym sessions spent on fundamentals. Atkinson, he said, “wanted to build a foundation to be able to build a house.”

What 28 wins teaches you

That Nets team won 28 games and finished last in the Atlantic Division. Over 70 appearances that season Allen put up 8.2 points and 5.4 boards a night, and he said the losing pushed him toward the habits he still leans on: when wins are scarce, “you learn to work,” and the summer becomes about more than playing.

He credited the veterans around him, too. Timofey Mozgov, whose minutes Allen eventually took, chose to help him instead, staying after practice to teach him post moves. Jeremy Lin, his next-door neighbor for a few months, invited him to family cookouts, and Tyler Zeller used flights to explain how bad nights are part of the job. Allen also adjusted to New York by treating his corner of Brooklyn as a neighborhood rather than a city.

He was traded to Cleveland in a four-team deal in January 2021, after three and a half seasons with the Nets, and he is now in his 10th season. According to the Cavaliers, his .653 field-goal percentage is the best in franchise history, he ranks eighth on the team’s all-time blocks list with 434, and he is one double-double short of 250 for his career.

What comes next

Cleveland hosts the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday, October 26, at 7 p.m. ET at Rocket Arena (Game Center).