Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert is confident Donovan Mitchell will not leave them after next season.
“We’ve been talking to him, sure, for the last couple of years about extending this contract,” Gilbert told The Associated Press on Thursday, March 28. “We think he will extend. I think if you listen to him talk, he loves the city.
He loves the situation in Cleveland because our players are very young and we’re just kind of putting the core together that he’s clearly the biggest part of.”
The Cavaliers’ biggest threat at luring Mitchell out of Cleveland is his hometown team, the New York Knicks, who have just overtaken them for the third seed in the Eastern Conference while the star was out with a knee injury and nasal fracture.
Mitchell is expected to return on Friday, March 29, against the Philadelphia 76ers, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported.
The Cavaliers fans are on the edge after Mitchell opted not to extend with the Cavaliers last summer.
Donovan Mitchell’s Decision to Not Extend Last Summer
Mitchell basically put pressure on the Cavaliers after their first-round exit in his first season with them when he did not sign the extension.
“I still have the opportunity to sign an extension next summer,” Mitchell said, via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. “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. We added new additions. We obviously had a season that you could kind of rate went really well until it went really poorly. So, for us, that’s where all of our heads are at. That’s where my head is at.”
Mitchell will still be eligible to sign a four-year, $200 million extension this summer.
But despite Gilbert’s assurances, Cavaliers fans will continue to be anxious as they have already experienced this before with their past superstar, LeBron James.
The Cavaliers gave up a lot to acquire Mitchell from the Utah Jazz, beating the Knicks with an overwhelming package consisting of forward Lauri Markkanen, Ochai Agbaji, guard Collin Sexton, three unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027 and 2029) and two pick swaps (2026 and 2028).
Lakers Also Interested in Trading for Donovan Mitchell
If Mitchell opts not to re-sign this summer, plenty of teams aside from the Knicks, will be interested to get the five-time All-Star out of Cleveland.
One of them is the Lakers, who have three first-round picks to use in a potential star trade this summer, according to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin.
“The Lakers have discussed internally the possibility of packaging three picks, along with players they already have on their books, to pursue a bona fide star, such as Donovan Mitchell of the Cleveland Cavaliers or Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks, team sources told ESPN,” McMenamin reported on January 23.
But the Knicks remain to be the Cavaliers’ biggest threat.
Mitchell admitted during his introductory press conference with the Cavaliers that he thought he was going home to New York.
“I thought for sure I was going back home, I’m not gonna lie about that,” Mitchell told reporters on September 14, 2022.
“I thought for sure I was going back home, I’m not gonna lie about that.”
@spidadmitchell on being hopeful that he was going home to play for the Knicks
But the Cavaliers found an opening to steal him from the Knicks when Leon Rose’s front office was still haggling over picks. The Jazz did not circle back to the Knicks once they began serious talks with the Cavaliers.
“New York had the assets Utah preferred and the sides seemed to be inching closer to a trade Sunday night and into Monday, but the Knicks balked on including Quentin Grimes in a trade with RJ Barrett to acquire Mitchell, sources said.
When guard Immanuel Quickley was proposed as a replacement for Grimes in the trade, Utah wanted three unprotected first-round draft picks as part of the package — but New York would only do a third first-round pick that included top-five protections, sources said,” ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on September 1, 2022, after the Jazz-Cavaliers trade was consummated.
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Donovan Mitchell’s Future With Cavs Gets Major Update