The Cleveland Cavaliers had a really good season a year ago. It may not have ended in a postseason berth, but otherwise this team took a major step forward and demonstrated this team is ready to move into the next step of building a contender. That also means they are a prime candidate to start getting into the discussion to trade for an available star player.
Teams that are rebuilding won’t be good enough upon acquiring such a player via trade that it rarely makes sense to make the move. Contending teams often don’t have the scratch to get a deal done. Teams like the Cavs could potentially have both, and that’s why they should be calling the Utah Jazz about a potential Donovan Mitchell trade.
The Cleveland Cavaliers could wade into the Donovan Mitchell trade waters. What do fans of the Cavs need to keep in mind about such a deal?
The prospect is tantalizing. Pair one of the league’s most electric shot makers with the young core in Cleveland, and Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo you have a team ready to win titles. At least, that’s how it feels. It’s no question that adding Mitchell would make the Cavs a better team.
Before such a trade, however, there are a number of things that the Cavs, and their excited fans, should keep in mind. Here are four important pieces of information to remember about contracts, negotiators and the fit of Mitchell before moving forward with negotiations.
4 things before Cavs trade for Donovan Mitchell: Designated Player Extension
This summer, Darius Garland agreed to an extension off of his rookie deal that will kick in after next season. That deal included potential bonuses if he makes an All-NBA team next season. Such a construct is called a “Designated Player Extension” and it’s a tool that was given to teams in the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) to reward homegrown stars.
Two years ago Donovan Mitchell agreed to a very similar contract, likewise working into his deal the elevators for making an All-NBA team. He did not make it the following year, 2020-21, which kept his salary at the lower max number, but he is still on a “Designated Player Extension” and thus any team that trades for him is subject to a quirky rule in the CBA.
An NBA team can only use that “DPE” twice on one roster, and only one of those players can be acquired via trade. Since Garland will be the only player on such an extension for the next few seasons, adding Mitchell as a second is allowable. Teams that already have someone in that category, like the Brooklyn Nets with Ben Simmons, can’t trade for Mitchell.
Where it matters for the Cavs is in a few seasons. Evan Mobley certainly looks like a player who will command a max contract when he becomes eligible. Such a deal would kick in for the 2025-26 season. In that year, Garland will be on his deal and Mitchell on his, which would prevent Mobley from signing it and lose their star big a substantial amount of potential income.
There is a way to thread the needle, however; if Mitchell declines his player option to sign an extension with the Cavs, he would move off of the DPE at the same time Mobley moves into his, and while that particular wrinkle has never occurred since this extension rule was put into place, that seems to check out.
To sum all of that up, trading for Mitchell limits trading for another young star, but the Cavs can probably still manage their current players and make the money work.
4 things before Cavs trade for Donovan Mitchell: Matching Salary
There are three ways to acquire a player in a trade. The first is to acquire them into cap space; if a team’s salaries add up to a total sufficiently below the salary cap to add the incoming salary entirely, then the acquiring team doesn’t need to worry about sending out a certain amount of salary to match. This is the rarest version of a star trade.
The second is for a team to use an available trade exception. A trade exception is generated when a team trades a player and receives back less than their salary in return; the New Orleans Pelicans generated one when they traded Eric Bledsoe and Steven Adams to the Memphis Grizzlies for less returning salary, and then used that exception as part of the CJ McCollum deal (which in turn generated a trade exception that the Portland Trail Blazers used to acquire Jerami Grant. Round and round we go).
The Cleveland Cavaliers currently have no cap space, and their two trade exceptions are both tiny; $858k from dumping Denzel Valentine on the New York Knicks, and a mere $300k from the Ricky Rubio trade to Indiana (Rubio made $300k more than Caris LeVert last season). Neither is enough to acquire any player, let alone Donovan Mitchell’s $30.35 million deal.
Therefore the Cavs will need to send out at least 75 percent of his salary back to the Utah Jazz to make this deal work. They have a few different paths to do so. The easiest would simply be to trade Kevin Love with draft capital, but the Jazz are likely going to want valuable players instead. That could be some combination of Caris LeVert, Lauri Markkanen, Cedi Osman or Collin Sexton in a sign-and-trade. We’ll dive into what the Jazz may want in a moment, but it’s important to keep in mind that the Cavs can’t just add Mitchell; they have to send back players in return.
4 things before Cavs trade for Donovan Mitchell: Expensive negotiation
Danny Ainge was known during his time with the Boston Celtics as a frustrating negotiator, one who extracted every drop of value from every trade he engaged in. From the trades he did pull off (Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce for Brooklyn’s future) to the ones he allegedly didn’t (Paul George, Anthony Davis, etc) he never wanted to “lose” the deal.
That has apparently carried over to his role with the Utah Jazz, never more apparent than the first few days of July. He managed to hoodwink a Brooklyn Nets team with an uncertain future into trading a first-round pick for a 3-and-D player who has been inconsistent with the “3” and is slipping noticeably at the “D” in Royce O’Neal. Then he pulled off the blockbuster of the century, sending Rudy Gobert and his massive contract to the Minnesota Timberwolves for multiple valuable rotation pieces (all of them more valuable than O’Neal), two prospects and a whopping return of draft picks.
Anyone expecting the Cavs to acquire Mitchell for Kevin Love’s expiring contract and a pair of first-round picks is sorely mistaken. The Jazz are going to want picks and swaps and young talent. The question is whether the Cavs can meet that demand and still field a team that can compete for a title over the next few years.
The best avenue for such a deal is to include Collin Sexton in a sign-and-trade. If he is open to going to Utah to be the centerpiece star, let’s say that he signs a four-year, $88 million deal with a player option. He heads to the Jazz along with Markkanen and Agbaji, the Cavs’ 2025, 2027 and 2029 first-round picks, along with swaps in 2026 and 2028. Would the Cavs be able to stomach that? Would the Jazz accept it? Will they demand Jarrett Allen in the deal? It’s going to be a costly move no matter how you slice it.
4 things before Cavs trade for Donovan Mitchell: The Fit
The final thing the Cavs must look at is how Donovan Mitchell fits on the team post-trade. Let’s assume for a moment that the Cavs do send Collin Sexton and Lauri Markkanen as the principals of a deal involving a lot of draft equity. Does the resulting lineup give the Cavs a contender?
The offensive potency of pairing Mitchell and Darius Garland would be absolutely lethal. Both are knockdown shooters and can play off of each other in various actions. They would be a real problem defensively, however. Playing Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen behind them would help to solve that problem, but the Cavs will have to develop or find an elite defender at the 3 to take on the most difficult assignments.
That might be Isaac Okoro or Dean Wade to start, but pairing two defensive sieves in the backcourt would mean the Cavs have to find the right 3 to go with them. He can be a role player, a 3-and-D guy, but they need an answer there. If they do, the resulting fivesome would be devastating offensively and most likely decent enough on defense. The bench would be something along the lines of Ricky Rubio, Okoro, Caris LeVert, Lamar Stevens and Kevin Love. That team could compete in the East right now, and as Mobley continues to develop realistically push for the NBA Finals in just a year or two.
It’s unlikely that a package offered by the Cavs will match Utah’s demands, or overcome the offers a team like the Miami Heat or New York Knicks can put together. If the Cavs could wade through the money and contract challenges, there is the potential to put together a phenomenal team.