The Donovan Mitchell Signing ISN’T What You Think…

The Donovan Mitchell Signing ISN’T What You Think…

Donovan Mitchell has signed a giant extension with the Cleveland Cavaliers that keeps him with the team for now and this is something that we talked all year about with Cleveland we talked about it going into the offseason as well this was arguably the biggest piece the biggest Pivot Point not only for the Cavs but for the entire NBA was whether or not do ofan Mitchell was going to become available because before this extension he was a 2025 free agent and if you’re Cleveland having traded stuff for Mitchell you don’t want to just lose that guy for nothing in free agency and this was the offseason in which he could sign the extension that he just did and if he didn’t sign that extension Donovan Mitchell was going to be available to trade to a handful of teams whether it be Miami New York the Lakers we talked about a ton of different teams right and I thought that was the direction we were going to go in eventually was Donovan Mitchell was be going to become available and I was wrong now there’s a ton of roster stuff to talk about with Cleveland in terms of what they’re going to do with all these other guys but you might be wondering why exactly Mitchell signed a three-year contract like we’re seeing guys like Jason Tatum signed 5year extensions we’re seeing other guys around the lead signed four and 5e extensions why is Mitchell only signing for 3 years well there’s two reasons for that one this is the path that gets down of Mitchell the most amount of money because when this deal is up in 2027 he’ll be able to renegotiate for a new extension and at that point he’ll have been in the NBA for 10 years which means he gets the largest possible extension amount which would be 5 years and $380 million in 2027 that is why it is a three-year deal at least that’s one of the reasons the other is to continually put pressure on Cleveland to where he could just end up back in in the same scenario they were in this offseason here in a couple of years assuming he is still on the team it continues to maintain leverage over the cabs in terms of hey you have to continue to make the team better or I’m going to ask out and if I do ask out I don’t have that many years left on my deal so I can position myself to put myself at the team that I want to be on that is why it is three years but the more interesting part of this is not necessarily that Mitchell is staying it’s what this means for the rest of the roster because before we knew what was going to happen with Mitchell it seemed like over the past month or so we were building towards Mitchell staying a Cavalier that was really no buzz about him potentially getting traded but before we actually knew that we kind of didn’t know exactly what was going to happen with the rest of the roster because as soon as they lost in the playoffs there were reports and rumors about how he wasn’t happy in Cleveland Darius garland would want a trade out of Cleveland if they managed to keep donov Mitchell they wanted to extend him they didn’t want or at least uh Garland’s Camp didn’t want those two guys to be playing together in clevand anymore and he was going to request a trade that part of it has kind of cooled off because I think the Cavs have realized hey dude we’ve got you on like four more years of this contract area scarland like that’s not how this is going to work where you’re just like oh I don’t want you guys to bring back donov Mitchell so trade me so it seems like those two guys at least are staying together in the front Court however there’s some questions there as well because in the postseason when Evan Moy played at the five when Jared Allen was hurt he looked awesome and I think there’s there’s definitely people around the league that feel like Mo’s long-term future is at the five which means that Jared Allen is not going to be a Cleveland Cavalier if you go that path now they have come out and said publicly that they’re keeping their core together they’re not trying to trade any of these guys away they still feel like there’s a way for them to put a wing around those four guys probably Max dreu and figure it out and and they’re just going to be good enough with those four guys and at certain points in the year they were correct at other points in the year whether it be when Garland was hurt or Allen was hurt they looked better with a little bit more of a streamline lineup and so right now it seems like they’re going to keep all those guys together here’s the problem with that if you’re Cleveland if you noticed around the league there’s a lot of teams that are maybe not trying to cut salary as much as not continually add more we saw the Nuggets just lose kcp for nothing that that’s one of their better players one of their better role players he’s just gone of course Paul George leaves the Clippers and part of that is because teams are avoiding the second second apron they don’t want these huge payrolls because it limits your ability to build your roster so if you’re Cleveland and you have a team that is less successful than that Nuggets roster and you have four guys that are all going to want massive contracts at what point is it just necessary for you to lose one of those guys probably Jared Allen the same way the nugas just lost kcp and the Clippers just lost Paul George you can say whatever you want to publicly about oh well we think this roster works with these four guys together there aren’t really that many teams around the league that are willing to have four big contracts in the way that the Cavs would currently Allen is on a cheaper deal so that helps and mo still on his rookie deal as well but like Boston’s kind of the only team that is just willing to go into the second apron and pay all their guys and not really care and Cleveland certainly is not on that level so they can say what they want publicly they can feel good about the team they have but eventually from a financial perspective especially with the new Mitchell extension and then the even bigger Mitchell extension down the road they might not have a choice but to move on from someone like Jared Allen and I think this extension for Mitchell is very informative in terms of what the Cavs plans are right now they’re probably going to go through with this group because they’re not in danger of having this super huge absolutely massive payroll that makes it completely impossible for them to build the team for now they still have like a year left where everything is okay but if in the middle of the Year things aren’t going well uh let’s say they’re you know 25 and 20 or something like let’s say they’re hovering around like the six to the 8 seat or something in Eastern Conference there’s just constantly going to be buzz and rumors about potentially Jared Allen getting moved or maybe Darius Garland whatever the case may be and they’ve avoided that now with Mitchell but that’s still kind of always going to be there as this contract does fully lock him in for another you know six years or anything he’s going to be a free agent again and he’s going to want another extension similar to the one that he just got and if the Cavs aren’t successful in that time period either he might want out or the Cavs might be ready to move on as well so even though on the surface it seems like hey donov Mitchell coming back to Cleveland that’s the end of the story there’s so many other things going on with this and I talked about this uh last offseason during the season this was always a massive year for the Caps because they traded a bunch of stuff for Mitchell they would have gotten a lot of stuff back but they wouldn’t have gotten the the same package they traded away considering La marinin turned into an all NBA caliber player uh in Utah but they needed to be successful this year they needed to have more postseason success than they did two years ago where they just got smoked by the Knicks in the first round and they won a playoff series this year which is nice but it was a tough seven game series in which they didn’t really look particularly good against Orlando but clearly that plus of the money was enough to keep Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland so congrats to the Cavs they were able to keep that guy I I truly did not think it was going to happen and it certainly there was a lot pressure on the franchise going through the season but now we are just watching to see what happens with the rest of the roster if there’s going to be some cost cutting moves or if what I think is going to happen for one year they’re just going to continue to roll forward with those four guys with Max stru with a handful of other wings and then maybe next off season or the following is the one where we see you know Jared Allen get moved or something like that if things don’t go well in the middle of the year maybe there’s something that happens a little bit quicker than that at the deadline but for now I expect donov Mitchell to be with the Cavs for at least a year or two and then we’ll kind of see what happens to depending on team success and their willingness to continue to spend a ton of money to keep this group together now the only thing really that could just completely throw a wrench in those plans is the Garland stuff that I talked about I mean right now Cleveland’s position is just we’re going to keep the guy like we don’t feel any pressure from a contract perspective and you know obviously his agency can be very powerful but they can’t really force them to trade Garin away and if he’s truly that unhappy then maybe there is a point at which it just becomes untenable and they realize you know what these guys don’t really work super well together anyway let’s trade him him let’s get a wing let’s maybe get a little bit cheaper get some picks the ability to build around Mitchell we’re still probably going to be just as good at least based off the numbers last year when only one of those guys was out there or more accurately when it was just Mitchell and Garland was hurt by the way Darius Garland is awesome and if he becomes available and I’m San Antonio a handful of other teams like I want that guy on my team 100% no question about it um but that would be the thing that would throw the wrench in these planes for Cleveland that’s the one thing they can’t really control is if Garland just like quits on the team basically because reportedly that’s what would happen if they brought back Mitchell they just did so we will see exactly what happens here but a ton of stuff to keep an eye on in Cleveland at the moment

Donovan Mitchell has signed a new 3 year, $150 million extension to stay with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but there is much more to this than just that.

#donovanmitchell #nba #nbanews