Former UCLA Center Moses Brown Making First Start For Cleveland Cavaliers

Brown will be replacing former USC star Evan Mobley in the starting lineup versus the Dallas Mavericks.

The last time Moses Brown started a game, he was suiting up for the Dallas Mavericks and going head-to-head with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Four months later, Brown is on the other side of the equation.

The former UCLA men's basketball center is in the midst of his third season in the NBA, but he is already on his fifth team. With so much movement, Brown has yet to carve out a consistent long-term role at any stop, but the Cavaliers are giving him a shot with injuries hitting their team late in the season.

Cleveland announced Brown as their starting center against Dallas on Wednesday night, with Rookie of the Year candidate and former USC big man Evan Mobley out with a sprained left ankle. The 7-foot-2 Bruin replacing the 7-foot Trojan has taken a much more roundabout journey to becoming the Cavaliers' starting big man in comparison to going No. 3 overall in the NBA Draft.

Brown was a five-star recruit and McDonald's All-American coming out of high school in 2018, and he joined a UCLA team that ranked inside the preseason AP top 25. While Brown put up several double-doubles in the first few weeks of the season, the Bruins were upset by Liberty and Belmont at home and coach Steve Alford was fired that New Year's Eve.

Playing out the rest of his freshman season with an interim head coach in Murry Bartow, Brown finished with averages of 9.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. Brown declared for the 2019 NBA Draft two weeks after Mick Cronin was hired, and he ultimately went undrafted.

After playing for the Houston Rockets in the NBA Summer League, Brown signed a two-way contract with the Portland Trailblazers. Brown then signed another two-way deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder before getting traded to the Boston Celtics and again to the Mavericks last offseason.

Brown bounced between the Mavericks and their G League affiliate Texas Legends, and he was eventually waived in February. The Cavaliers were the next team to come calling, signing Brown to a 10-day contract on March 10 and re-upping the young big man on March 21.

The only stop where Brown had any semblance of regular playing time was Oklahoma City, where he spent the entirety of his second professional season. Brown averaged 8.6 points and 8.9 rebounds per game in 43 appearances and 32 starts for the Thunder in 2020-2021, going for 24 points, 18 rebounds and seven blocks in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers on May 16 and 21 points and 23 rebounds against the Celtics on March 27.

The Celtics traded for Brown in June, then flipped him to the Mavericks for Josh Richardson not long after. Brown averaged 3.1 points and 2.3 rebounds in 26 games for Dallas, and is averaging 2.6 points and 1.9 rebounds per game across his first seven appearances with the Cavaliers.

Cleveland is currently the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, sitting at 42-33 with seven games to go. In order to avoid the play-in tournament, the Cavaliers will need to makeup the 1.5-game gap between them and the Toronto Raptors.

With no Mobley for the rest of the week and All-Star center Jarrett Allen still out with a fractured finger, Brown may need to play a major part in the final push for Cleveland.

Tip off between the Cavaliers and Mavericks is set for 4 p.m. PST/7 p.m. EST.

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