Cavs and Jazz both look like runaway winners from blockbuster trade

Cavs are big winners from blockbuster trade

Last season, losing Darius Garland would have doomed the Cavs to a winless streak to start the season. From the time Ricky Rubio tore his ACL, Garland was the only player on the roster capable of creating for both himself and others at a high level. Any success they achieved was cobbled together by defense and willpower.

This season things are completely different. The loss of Garland hurts the team, for certain, and it lowers their ceiling. The Cavs aren’t winning a playoff series with him, for example. Yet what the presence of Donovan Mitchell does is raise the floor; with Mitchell as the center of the offensive attack, the Cavs can score enough for their defense to lift them to wins.

Mitchell has been a superstar for the Cavs thus far, the first player in franchise history to start a season with three consecutive 30-point games and only the third to do so in NBA history in his first three games with a new team (Wilt Chamberlain and Tim Hardaway being the others). It’s a historic start, and it has led to the Cavs’ offense getting excellent looks from outside due to his on-ball gravity:

Mitchell is carrying a heavy burden, with the league’s fifth-highest usage rate, and it will be best for the Cavs’ offense when Garland returns and that eases a bit. Yet it’s hard to argue with the results: second in Win Shares, top-15 in Box Plus-Minus, and sixth in points per game. Mitchell has been everything the Cavs needed and more to start the season.