In the midst of the Cleveland Cavaliers slicing through the NBA like a hot knife through butter, winning 21 of their first 24 games, it can be easy to forget that all of this almost didn't happen.
Just a few months ago, the entire future of the team was in doubt. After trading away (nearly) their entire future to add star guard Donovan Mitchell, he and the team were at a crossroads. With an extension on the table, would Mitchell sign and commit to being on the Cavaliers for another few seasons? Or would he pass on an extension, thus propelling him toward unrestricted free agency next summer and the Cavaliers to therefore strongly consider trading him.
Very real drama and uncertainty battled underneath the surface of the organization; with such a franchise-defining decision, until Mitchell officially signed there was always going to be doubt. And in that period of waiting, other NBA teams came calling to see if the Cavaliers were ready to make a deal.
On a recent episode of the Hoop Collective podcast, ESPN's Tim McMahon spoke back to that time while discussing the Houston Rockets, stating that they were ready and willing to trade for Donovan Mitchell this past summer. While that is not new information -- McMahon reported it at the time as well -- bringing it back up now allows us to re-examine that moment in history in light of all that has happened since.
What if the Houston Rockets had traded for Donovan Mitchell this summer? What if he had declined to sign an extension and the Cavaliers had decided to pull the trigger on a trade before he could walk away in free agency? Let's look at the "what if" from both sides.
What if the Rockets had traded for Donovan Mitchell?
The story of the NBA thus far this season is the triumphant play of the Cleveland Cavaliers (although obviously the headlines are most driven by the negative, so the flailing 76ers are certainly getting a lot of face time). Yet their surprising dominance has somewhat masked the leap another team has made, as the Houston Rockets are having themselves an unexpectedly strong start to the season.
Houston is 15-8 through their first 23 games of the season, with a number of significant wins to their name. They are tied for second in the Western Conference and have the league's second-best defense. Their combination of defensive identity and rising young talent has worked together to propel them ahead of schedule as a team.
Some of their young players have had such strong starts to the season that they have been labeled as "untouchable" in trade discussions. They are often closing games with a combination of players on rookie deals and battle-hardened vets like Dillon Brooks and Fred VanVleet.
What if the Rockets had moved some of that young talent and plenty of picks for Donovan Mitchell this summer? They could be playing this season with a core of VanVleet, Mitchell, Brooks, Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun, and potentially Jabari Smith Jr., Tari Eason or Cam Whitmore depending on who was included in the deal. That is a group that could excel on both ends of the court without question.
Would they have a brighter future than the current Rockets? That's difficult to say, but the answer is probably yes. Mitchell is not a clearcut Top-10 player, but the Rockets' problem right now is that they have a tremendous number of two-way players but no on-ball superstar. Could Jalen Green still become that? Maybe. Could Reed Sheppard? Perhaps. Right now, however, they don't have that player.
Mitchell would be their best on-ball star, and together with VanVleet and Sengun form a high-octane offensive group. The Rockets have enough spacing to allow Mitchell to go to work, and defensively the right pieces to ensure he has support.
What would the Cavaliers be like if they had traded Mitchell?
The Cleveland Cavaliers have gelled together under new head coach Kenny Atkinson and have the league's best record. Would that still be true if they had traded Donovan Mitchell?
The answer is probably not, as Mitchell is a key part of their success as the best player on the team - take away any team's best player and they probably get worse. What's more, a new group would likely not have the same chemistry and need time to grow together.
It also depends on who would have been traded to Cleveland in a Mitchell deal. Would Jalen Green be starting in place of Mitchell? That's undeniably a worse starting lineup, then. Would salary filler like Steven Adams and Jeff Green move the needle? Probably not.
Where the Cavaliers could have benefited would have been any other two-way young players included in the deal. Tari Eason could have been a wrecking ball for Cleveland coming off the bench, a high-energy defensive Swiss army knife. If Jabari Smith Jr. was in the trade, he would be an ideal complement to Evan Mobley in the frontcourt as a stretch-big, and make Jarrett Allen more expendable in a subsequent trade.
Moving off of Mitchell could also have signaled a pivot for the Cavaliers; they could have let Isaac Okoro walk, traded Allen and Mitchell, and tried to add some young talent in a bit of a retooling. Instead of crushing the league this season, they could have aimed to do that in two years instead.
There are innumerable potential futures that could have resulted from a Donovan Mitchell trade this summer. Looking back, however, it seems that both teams are quite happy with where they are. Spida