Cavs News: Mitchell snub, award time, remembering Nick

The Cleveland Cavaliers had a busy week despite their season being over. As the NBA rolled out its award results, multiple Cavs players saw recognition. Did they get the flowers they deserved?

Mitchell not pleased with All-NBA results

The NBA’s All-NBA team was announced on Wednesday night, and to nobody’s surprise, Donovan Mitchell was named to his first career All-NBA team. He joined Stephen Curry as a Second Team guard, with De’Aaron Fox and Damian Lillard on the Third Team and Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander taking the First Team slots.

It’s a big honor for Mitchell, who had never made an All-NBA team before. The last Cavaliers guard to make an All-NBA Team was Kyrie Irving in 2014-15, and before that Mark Price made four teams from 1988 to 1994. Yet Mitchell wasn’t satisfied with how the final voting worked out:

Mitchell was presumably referring to Luka Doncic making First Team All-NBA instead of himself. Spida finished sixth in MVP voting, two spots above Doncic, whose Dallas Mavericks collapsed down the stretch and missed the Play-In Tournament entirely, let alone the playoffs.

Is Mitchell justified in his beef? Perhaps, although for a player making the first All-NBA team of his career, a Second Team honor (and alongside Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic) seems like quite the accomplishment. This appears to have meant a lot to him, and here’s hoping he uses that slight to motivate him this offseason.

Evan Mobley makes defensive history

The All-Defense teams were also announced this week, and Evan Mobley made the First Team. It was obviously the first such selection of his career, but it also was a historic one: he became the youngest player to make First-Team All-Defense, and one of just five players in NBA history to make one of the teams in his age-21 season. Those other names? Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Anthony Davis and Dejounte Murray. That’s impressive company.

Remembering Nick Gilbert

Nick Gilbert, the 26-year-old son of Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, passed away this week from a genetic condition. He was well known in the Cavs organization and became a fan favorite (leaguewide) when he served as the Cleveland representative at the NBA Draft Lottery. He was something of a good luck charm, attending when the Cavs twice won the No. 1 pick.

Our condolences here at King James Gospel go out to the Gilbert family. Nick, thanks for sharing your light with us.

What to Read

The Cavaliers and the website have turned our eyes to the upcoming offseason. Our own Caleb Crowley has been hard at work, highlighting three budget wings and three budget bigs to sign. Similarly, Dan Gilinsky looked at two young bigs to take a look at.

For the trade market, I ranked all of Cleveland’s meaningful trade assets. They will almost certainly not be trading one of their stars, but how do you sort through their collection of second-round picks and role players? We took a crack at it.