Cleveland Cavaliers don't have to wonder if Donovan Mitchell is a superstar or not, but the entire league is full of jaw-dropping talent right now.
Since joining the Cavaliers in 2022, Mitchell has ascended from his days with the Utah Jazz as a rising star to a bonafide All-NBA show stopper. He has earned All-NBA nods twice in his last four seasons, including a selection to first team last season. This season, Mitchell is assembling another accomplished season, averaging 27.7 points, 5.7 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game while leading the Cavs to another Playoffs appearance.
Mitchell's dynamic form of basketball has only evolved with the Cavs, adding a deep arsenal of offensive tools to his game. His ability to breakdown defenses and either open up his own shot or drop off a dime to a teammate can silence any opponent's fan base, and Mitchell's revival of the classic Dwyane Wade over-the-head crossover gives Cleveland fans plenty of highlights every night.
On the surface, Mitchell is obviously an All-NBA player again, and he is debatably worthy of first team. He has performed even greater this season than he did last year when he earned the award, but his competition this year is noticeably harder.
Talents like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Victor Wembanyama and Nikola Jokic are all guaranteed locks for the first team, assuming they all meet the 65-game requirement. Mitchell has already met that requirement, offering him a golden chance to join those ranks.
In a bittersweet turn of fate, Mitchell's chances at first team are getting a lot better every day for every reason nobody wants to see. When Detroit Pistons star and MVP candidate Cade Cunningham was diagnosed with a collapsed lung, it was announced by the Pistons he would likely miss the remainder of the regular season, removing him from end-of-season awards contention. Now, Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic is facing the same fate.
Mitchell's All-NBA bid got better at the cost of Luka Doncic
It is well-catalogued across the NBA that it is beyond improper behavior to celebrate injuries, especially those with major repercussions.
In the midst of a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Doncic exited to the locker room with an apparent injury in the third quarter. Later, it was confirmed to be a Grade 2 hamstring strain following an MRI in Dallas. Timelines confirmed Doncic would miss the final games of the season, leaving him at 64 games played, missing the mark by exactly one.
The most recent news, while good for Lakers fans, still removes Doncic from the awards competition. According to Shams Charania and Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Luka will go overseas to Europe for specialized medical treatment in an effort to expedite his return for the Playoffs.
Ahead of Doncic's untimely injury, the Lakers were in the midst of a hot end-of-season run, earning the league's second-best win percentage (88.2 percent) with a 15-2 record for the month of March. Doncic led the NBA in scoring during that time, averaging a staggering 37.5 points while shooting 39.2 percent on three-pointers.
Los Angeles was entering the postseason on fire with Luka playing the best basketball of his NBA career.
That one game missed might tear apart all the success Doncic deserves, which through a painful ripple effect, leaves Mitchell in better standing with the All-NBA voters. Granted, the Lakers and Luka will seek an exception from the league office for the 65-game rule given his circumstances, but the situation still makes Mitchell a much better candidate for the accolade.
Luka might force the NBA's hand
Doncic's situation, alongside Cunningham and other stars, could certainly lead to changes to the league's drastic measure to combat injury management that had become a rapidly divisive topic over recent years. The league and fans wanted stars to play, but teams prioritized rest and preparedness for the postseason.
Cunningham's situation has especially been a primary cause for commentators, fans and personalities to cast judgement on the rule. Cunningham's tremendous season had been the final payoff to lift the Pistons from a league-worst franchise to the first seed in the Eastern Conference in just two seasons. In Luka's case, he had been an MVP candidate all season and was surging to give the Lakers a perfect postseason position to end the year.
One, two or three games can tear all of that work apart, which not only strips players of hard-earned awards but also trivializes the awards earned by those who do meet the mark. No analyst would suggest that Mitchell is not a star worthy of a third All-NBA selection, but his position in first or second team could easily have been decided by the health of his fellow superstars.
Awards like MVP and Defensive Player of the Year may quickly be called into question with detractors using missed award seasons against a player's legacy, ignoring the context of an harsh, restrictive rule which has quickly gone beyond the scope of its intended punishments. Voters rarely gave awards to players who hardly saw the court in the regular season, but the league has added an arbitrary rule to take that decision-making away.
Donovan Mitchell is undoubtedly one of the NBA's greatest offensive talents, and he deserves awards for his accomplishments. His newest Cleveland Cavaliers co-star James Harden is equally deserving of All-NBA nods, but either one of them could quickly face the ire of angry and discontent onlookers for something entirely out of their control.