Yes, it's waaaaaay too early to determine if passing on Mitchell was the right decision, but the early returns aren't awesome.
Donovan Mitchell is averaging career-highs in points, FG%, made three-pointers, 3PT%, blocks and FT percentage. The Cavs have the third best record in the NBA. Meanwhile, in New York...
In the aftermath of the Jazz trading Donovan Mitchell to Cleveland, as news started to leak out detailing what the Knicks put on the table as their "best and final offer," I was stunned at how incredibly close they came to landing their man.Â
Leon Rose was on the one-yard line, and instead of handing the ball off to Marshawn Lynch, he had Russell Wilson drop back and throw. The Cavs intercepted the pass, and the rest is history.Â
Ultimately, it seems the breaking point was New York wanting to add light protections to a 2025 pick, and Utah demanding that the pick be left unprotected.Â
Various reports indicated that New York was willing to part with RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley (and Evan Fournier) and three future first-round picks (two unprotected and one with only top-5 protections), along with two second-round picks and two pick swaps.Â
Mitchell would likely be a Knick if New York had been willing to remove the top-five protections from that one future pick.Â
There were other iterations of the deal that included Quentin Grimes, Obi Toppin or Cam Reddish etc.Â
Multiple outlets reported that talks broke down after Barrett and New York agreed to his four-year extension. That's when the Cavs pounced. Forty-eight hours later, they had a deal. Leon Rose and the Knicks assumed Ainge would give New York a chance to match any offer Utah was willing to accept, but that didn't happen. Ainge never re-engaged with Rose and didn't allow New York to beat the Cavs package.
That was three months ago.Â
Last night in Cleveland, Donovan Mitchell put on an incredible show for his new fanbase. In a contest that garnered national attention for LeBron James' return to his former stomping ground, it was a current Cavalier who was the best player on the court, by far.Â
Mitchell poured in a season-high 43 points to go along with six rebounds, five assists, four steals, and four 3-pointers in Cleveland's 116-102 victory over Los Angeles. He scored 29 of those 43 points in the second half, carrying the Cavs to the finish line.
"He's Mitchell," LeBron said after the game. "He's a special kid."
With Wednesday's win, Cleveland is now seven games over .500. Only two teams in the league (Boston and Milwaukee) have more victories this season. The Cavs are an NBA-best 11-1 at home, their best start since 2015-16 when LeBron led them to a title.Â
On the season, Mitchell's numbers are mind-boggling. He is averaging career-highs in points (29.0), field-goal percentage (49.6), made three-pointers (3.9), three-point percentage (42.4%), blocks (0.4) and free-throw percentage (89%).
He is on pace to join Michael Jordan and Steph Curry as just the third player in NBA history to average 29+ PPG and 4+ APG while also shooting over 42% from downtown.Â
What's more, Mitchell has been locked in on the other end of the floor as well and is playing some of the best defense of his young career.Â
From the Knicks' perspective, the hope was that by holding onto their young core, those players would have strong 2022-23 campaigns, boosting their trade value and increasing their league-wide demand.Â
Welp. Things have not gone as planned.
Fresh off signing a $100 million contract extension, RJ Barrett has had a nightmarish start to the season. He's shooting 40% from the floor and a career-low 28% from behind the arc while averaging a career-high 2.3 turnovers per game. All his advanced metrics (PER, Wins Shares etc.) are all the lowest they've been since his rookie season.Â
Immanuel Quickley has been playing better of late but is still averaging a career-low 10.0 points and shooting a career-worst 30.8% from downtown. He's averaging fewer assists and more turnovers than he did last season.Â
Quentin Grimes got off to a slow start, averaging 5.6 points, and has converted less than 27% of his three-point attempts. Â
Obi Toppin remains stuck behind Julius Randle. Obi is averaging fewer points than last season and is shooting a career-low 42.3% from the field.Â
Made three-pointers this season:
Donovan Mitchell: 89 on 210 attempts
RJ, IQ and Grimes COMBINED: 76 on 263 attempts
Evan Fournier, who led the Knicks in three-point shooting last season and would have been included in the Mitchell deal to make salaries match, has been exiled to the end of the bench. Fournier, who is making $18,000,000 this season and will pocket $18,857,143 next season, hasn't played a single second since November 13th.Â
Cam Reddish, who was rumored to be part of a potential three-way trade with the Jazz and Lakers, was a DNP-CD Sunday night and, according to Thibs, is not currently part of the team's nine-man rotation.Â
Collectively, the league-wide perception of the Knicks' young core is trending in the wrong direction.Â
The Cavs, thanks in large part to the All-NBA caliber play of Mitchell, are flying high. The Knicks, sitting two games below .500, have yet to get off the ground and are seemingly on the verge of firing their head coach.Â
Look, as the title of this post points out, it would be beyond foolish to declare the Cavs "winners" of their trade with Utah (who have exceeded expectations early on without Donovan). We won't be able to make any such determination for a long, long time; until all the future first-round picks have been conveyed.
The Cavs gave up a ton of assets to win playoff series, not regular season games in December.Â
Similarly, the Knicks not trading for Mitchell may be looked back on as a blessing many years from now. Maybe RJ turns things around and has a monster second half (as he did last season), and Grimes starts knocking down his three-balls (I bet he does) and develops into an elite 3-and-D wing. And the Knicks consolidate their war chest of draft picks in a trade for the next superstar that wants out of his current situation (the marriage of KAT and Gobert in Minnesota is off to a rocky start).
A positive outcome is obviously still within the realm of possibilities.Â
However, if we're being honest, it's hard to imagine the Knicks' decision to pass on Mitchell looking worse just three months after the fact.Â
It’s an epic failure by the Knicks again! They’ve been in a perpetual rebuild for the last 20 years and now had their chance to get a young elite player that could make them a very good team and with some tweaking of the roster over the next couple of years using more of their assets could have made them a championship contender. No team in the NBA is winning a championship without at least one elite player, the Knick now don’t even have an all star on their roster. So unfortunately it looks like we’re heading towards another 20 year rebuild again because this GM is not capable of making good decisions to improve this team. The Knicks also have the worst talent evaluators in the league that over the years passed up on multiple future all stars in the draft, including Mitchell!
I normally like what you write. But, this is a snarky article. It would have been a lot more interesting if you actually wrote an article about how it is way too early to make a determination which could have incorporated all the plus points you mentioned + something like the following
Everyone knows that Mitchell is an all-star and a great offensive player. The Jazz were the #1 seed in the West a couple of years ago with Mitchell / Gobert. I don't recall their exact record, but the Cavs were a very good team in the first part of the regular season last year before injuries started piling up. So, is it unexpected / particularly impressive that Mitchell is putting up big numbers and the Cavs are in 3rd place in the east a quarter of the way through the season? If they were in first place, I might agree with you. But, as of now, you could also make the case that they are underperforming what Mitchell did when he was with the Jazz when you look at how well the Jazz has performed without Mitchell. Mitchell and Gobert weren't traded because they were bad regular season players. They were traded because they couldn't get over the hump in the playoffs. Currently, the Cavs are behind the Celtics and the Bucks. I don't see them beating either team in the playoffs. For what the Cavs gave up, I would want to get to at least get to the conference finals. If the Cavs don't get past the second round, do you think the deal was a success?
The Knicks made a decision to walk away either because they actually felt the price was too high (which I strongly believe it was) or as part of a failed negotiating strategy that assumed there would not be any other offers and Ainge would cave (narrative of beat writers and content creators). It is possible / likely that both are true. At the end of the day, the Jazz asked for a lot (with most of the value coming from future picks) and the Cavs were willing to meet the price while the Knicks were not. As of today, we would be in the play-in as the 9 seed. There has been some / a lot of dysfunction. But, I am pleased with the decisions to bench Rose / Fournier and am looking forward to seeing the new 9 man rotation where everyone but Julius and Brunson is 24 or younger, i.e. we are now building around the young players for the most part.
Having said that, if the Cavs win a championship this season and Mitchell is the MVP of the finals and the Knicks don't make the play in with the young players, the Knicks will obviously have made the wrong decision. On the other hand, we just beat the Cavs and are only currently a game and a half out of the 6 seed. It's not out of the question that the (a) Indiana pivots to tanking for Wembayama, and (b) Durant / Embiid end up missing a bunch of games because of injuries, and the Knicks slide into the playoffs as the 6 seed vs the Cavs who are the 3 seed. Based on the trajectory of the two games played between the teams to date, I can see the Knicks playing the Cavs competitively in the series but only winning a game or too because Mitchell is the best player. If that happens and then the Cavs go on to exit in a second round loss to the Bucks in 5 or 6 games, I think the Cavs would look at the Mitchell trade as a disappointment and I think the Knicks would feel like they made the right decision to pass on Mitchell (not because he isn't a great player but rather because he is who he was with the Jazz an all-star but not a 1st or 2nd team all-NBA 2-way player who can be the best player on a championship team).
Bottom line .... it is waaaaay too early to see who was right and who was wrong.