Yikes Cleveland

Donovan Mitchell has never publicly demanded a trade and has never officially said that he only wants to play in New York but it is the worst kept secret in the league that he has every intention of eventually playing for the Knicks or (if he absolutely has to) the Nets. 

Last year when the Jazz and the Knicks were negotiating the Knicks leaned heavily on the fact that everyone knew that Mitchell really only wanted to play in New York and they refused to make the kind of all in offer that Danny Ainge and the Jazz front office were expecting. 

The negotiations went on for months with both sides refusing to submit to the others demands until the Cavs snuck in and gave the Jazz the offer they were looking for sending over Markkanen, Sexton, Agbaji and a handful of unprotected firsts. 

Trading for Mitchell even though they were not on his list (even though he never had a list) of preferred destinations was always a risk for the Cavaliers but when they made the trade Mitchell had 3 years left on his deal and they were adding him to a core of young all stars on roughly the same timeline as him. They must have believed that the opportunity to play with Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarred Allen in a city that wasn’t Salt Lake would be enough for him to forget about New York. 

The first season of the Donovan Mitchell Cavs came and went and while it had some great moments like Mitchell scoring 71 and finally cracking and All NBA team for the first time (crazy he was passed over so many times in Utah) it ended with a rather embarrassing first round exit against the Knicks despite the fact that the Cavs had home court advantage in that series. 

In the offseason the Cavs offered Donovan a contract extension which he turned down. While this is not a great sign for the Cavs turning down the extension does not explicitly mean that he intends to force his way out of Cleveland because if he signs an extension next year with the Cavs it would be for even more money and Donovan commented on this before the season started:

“I still have the opportunity to sign an extension next summer… My primary focus is this just trying to go out there and trying to be the best team we can be and bring a championship to the city and go from there” 

Now this quote is pretty forgettable press conference speak but Mitchell is in a spot where he’s saying what he’s supposed to say because saying the truth would be awkward either way. If it’s his intention to leave he’s obviously not going to say that but even if it is his intention to stay in Cleveland and not signing the extension is just about maximizing the amount of money he makes it’s still a little weird to say that even though it’s completely his right to do it. 

The real problem if you’re the Cavs is that Mitchell has avoided even verbally committing to staying in Cleveland long term. We’ve seen in the past that an athlete saying “I want to stay here forever” or “I want to retire with this team” means very little but even so it is alarming for Cavs fans that Mitchell won’t even make an empty promise to them. If he wants to be in Cleveland there is really no reason not to say it. It would make sense if the Cavs were an older team and he was worried about their best players aging and the team getting worse (Like his Jazz teams) but out of all their core guys he is the oldest and players like Garland and Mobley should really only get better there are not many young cores in the league where Mitchell could set up shop long term better than what they have in Cleveland. Nevertheless Mitchell has been very careful talking about how he’s just focused on this year and they’ll “see what happens” in the offseason. 

This sort of ducking any and all questions about his future has raised alarm bells around the league and most people around the league have come to the same opinion, that Donovan Mitchell is not long for Cleveland. 

So what are the Cavs supposed to do? They have a few options. 

Option 1 – Trade Him Before the Trade Deadline 

When the Cavs traded for Mitchell they paid a price that reflects the fact that he had 3 years left on his deal. The longer they wait to trade him the less they will get back in the deal. With Mobley and Garland both suffering what seem like quite serious injuries and the Cavs already behind the eight ball record wise this season looks like it may be a wash and then you’d only have 1 more season of Donovan Mitchell to try to make the trade you made worth it.

Pros

If they trade him now they should still be able to get a superstar haul since the team getting him would be guaranteed his services in 2 playoff runs. Even though it is obvious that he wants to get to New York with a year and half left on his deal you could sell him as an expensive rental to Orlando or Houston or whatever team wants to level up their team and can trick themselves into thinking maybe if we are good enough he will like it here enough to stay. Or you could trade him to Brooklyn and get those Suns picks which based on how things are being run there currently are going to be awesome in a couple of years. 

Cons 

This would be a pretty sad way for the Mitchell era to end and it would be basically admitting that trading for him in the first place was a mistake. Even if you get good picks from other teams when you trade him you are out 5 of your own picks which will hamper your ability to acquire more players to support your remaining core. Also when the Cavs made this move I’m sure they factored in that he could possibly move on from them but I don’t think they would have thought it would be over this fast so any move they make this season would feel a lot like a panic move and when you are trying to make trades it is no good to be seen around the league as desperate or panicking. 

Option 2 – Ride out this season and trade him in the offseason 

Right now things look bleak for the Cavs sitting in the play in tournament part of the standings, Mobley and Garland both injured with the teams they had hoped to be peers with like the Celtics, Bucks and Sixers far ahead in the standing and now getting passed by other young teams like the Magic and Pacers, BUT it is just December and last year in December the Nuggets were 13-12 and and the Pelicans were the 1 seed in the West. The teams at the top of the East are very good but not perfect, Mobley and Garland are hurt but not out for the season. Give this core another chance to prove itself and then see what you can get for Mitchell in the off season. 

Pros

You paid for 3 years of Donovan Mitchell  so you might as well get at least 2 years of Donovan Mitchell before you trade him away. If you are picking this option you are betting on 2 things. That this Cavs core has a deep playoff run in them and that what you get back for Mitchell as a 1 year rental will not be much worse than trading him as a 1 and half year rental. Basically you are saying what Mitchell can give us in the second half of the season is more valuable than what the Nets would give us for the honor of getting him at the trade deadline instead of after the season. I would say it is a very long shot that the Cavs would win or even make the finals but I don’t think the bar is so high in Cleveland that they would have to make the finals for it to be worth it for them to lose some value in the Donovan Mitchell trade. If they could win 1 playoff series it would be their first non Lebron playoff series victory since 1993. 

Cons 

If you pick this option you are choosing to trade Mitchell as a 1 year rental which will limit the teams that are interested him and make it so the teams that are interested in him will be less willing to part with actually valuable assets like unprotected Suns picks. In return for this risl you get no guarantees. The most likely outcome is a first round exit which you could probably manage to do even without Mitchell and with Garland and Mobley out it is possible that you stay in the play in range of the standings and then get bounced by a hot shooting night for the Pacers in a one and done game. You are giving up on a potentially valuable pick in exchange for what could be a completely forgettable half season. 

Option 3 – Do not ever trade him

Heck I paid for 3 years of the Donovan Mitchell I’m getting my 3 years of Donovan Mitchell. This approach is a real going down with the ship mentality and that is not something NBA front offices really do anymore. But I think it would be interesting if a GM just approached a trade like I made a trade and I got the fans of my team 3 entertaining seasons of winning basketball and I don’t need to flip the player for more picks for that to have been worth it. I think because people like Garland and Mobley they forget that before Mitchell joined this team they were not a playoff team. They were a team that had 1 good half of a season in 3 years.  Also I am factoring into this approach that it is possible that if the teams Mitchell wants to play for are not interested in offering him the contract he wants that he might like Cleveland and the young core of players he’s with to just end up staying because unlike with Utah Mitchell does not seem to have an issue with Cleveland except for that it is not his hometown. 

Pros 

I made the point in the last blurb that having traded for a player as good as Donovan Mitchell for 3 years might be worth it even if he walks and you get nothing but the real hope behind this strategy is that if you refuse to facilitate Mitchell moving to another team the teams he wants to go to might not have the cap space or even the desire to sign him outright when his contract is up and the best course of action for him is to just stay in Cleveland. Part of this also would be offering Mitchell the max extensions that he will be eligible for that are very difficult to turn down but letting him know that you have no intention of ever trading him if he signs it. If you get him to sign the extension I don’t think Mitchell has the stomach to get involved in an ugly trade demand dispute like James Harden does every couple months and the worst you would have to worry about him doing would be some quiet quitting the way he did at the end of his Utah tenure. The pitch to keep Mitchell would be as simple as “hey you’re already here we’re already good why don’t you just stay” (*whispers* Maybe Lebron will come back) 

Cons 

This is the dumbest thing a GM could do and would guarantee you to be fired. The Nets would love to wait and sign Donovan Mitchell and if it became obvious this was your strategy the Heat would line up their contracts so that when the Jimmy Butler era ends the Donovan Mitchell era starts and they could pair him up with Bam and be off the races. If you choose this option you are doing Garland and Mobley a huge disservice. Even though that duo had not had any success before Mitchell arrived they have both improved (although not as much as people had hoped) and are probably good enough to get the Cavs to the playoffs and lose. Getting a return for Mitchell could be the difference between building a Cavs team with a higher ceiling and being stuck in the Atlanta Hawks play in to first round exit treadmill (my Hawks top seed prediction is looking really rough right now). 

Option 4 – Sign Mitchell to a massive extension and then later trade him for the biggest haul possible

This option requires some cooperation on Mitchell’s side but it would be the best way for him to get his money and make sure the Cavs get the return they need to build their next great team. It would screw over Mitchell’s next team but players tend not to worry about that too much when they are signing massive extensions and then getting to play with the team of their desire.

Pros

This is the best possible option for the Cavs if they could pull this off they would be on cloud nine. They avoid having to deal Mitchell from a place of weakness and besides the fact that maybe they would rather have Mitchell than not have him this is the ultimate win for the Cavs as far as recovering the assets they spent on Mitchell. Also it could even benefit the team trading for Mitchell since trading for a player is sometimes easier than clearing cap space and hoping to sign them. Also this could serve to keep Mitchell on the Cavs for a little longer since after he signs the extension if the timing doesn’t work out with the team he was hoping to get traded to he could just hang out on the Cavs getting buckets and cashing checks. 

Cons 

This requires cooperation from a lot of different people. Mitchell would have to agree, the team that he wants to be traded to would have to agree and in the NBA that can be a difficult needle to thread. Also if Mitchell gets the extension he wants he would be getting quite the raise and would not be able to be traded for several months or even a year.. In the NBA a lot can happen in that amount of time. Also this seems like the kind of handshake agreement that the NBA would frown upon if they found out about it. In the end the chances that Mitchell and the team of his dream agree to do this are so  minimal it’s really not worth entertaining as an option. 

I think if you are the Cavs your best course of action is to let teams know that Mitchell can be had but you’ll have to give them almost the exact same package they sent to Utah. It is possible that a team gets desperate and pays up. Then in the offseason you can pit the Nets and the Heat against each other and get a pretty standard deal in exchange for 1 year of Mitchell’s services and then you can move on. But it is never that simple. And whatever decision the Cavs front office makes will shape how the Garland and Mobley era of Cleveland basketball pans out.

I think it is interesting to think about if this trade was a huge mistake on Cleveland’s part. They made the deal knowing that it was Mitchell’s intention of eventually playing in New York. The 3 years on his deal made it easy to justify and convince yourself you could get him to stay but when they were making the deal they knew that they were sneaking in and stealing Mitchell from the Knicks and paid a big price to do so. They had 3 very good very young players and all the assets to make a move to take them to next level. When you look around the NBA at the time of the trade Mitchell was a homerun as far as who would target in a big but the timing was all wrong. Mobley and Garland were still too young to take advantage of having a player like Mitchell on the team for such a short window of time. Mobley was only 21 it is basically an NBA law that player don’t hit their prime until their mid twenties. The Cavs should have slowly built around Garland and Mobley and then made this kind of trade in 2027 which feels crazy to say but if you believe those guy are the kind of guys that can win a championship those are the years you need to be thinking of as your all in years, not right now. But the mistake has been made and it’s how they respond to it that will really matter.