Cavaliers Trade for Donovan Mitchell!

   The rumored suitors for Utah Jazz star guard Donovan Mitchell over the last few months were plentiful with the most prominent and likely contender in the New York Knicks supposedly close to a swap until earlier this week, the Knicks puzzled observers with a massive contract extension with R.J. Barrett that seemed to remove them from any hopes of obtaining Mitchell unless Utah had agreed to the extension before a potential trade.

Still, few saw Donovan Mitchell starting the season in October wearing a uniform other than the Utah Jazz or the New York Knicks but he will not be with either team as Koby Altman and the Cleveland Cavaliers swooped in to take advantage of the Knicks poker game with Utah to make the deal for themselves to land the three-time All-Star for their lineup.

The trade bolsters the Cavaliers a great deal and makes them contenders in the Eastern Conference as soon as next season.

Donovan Mitchell averaged just under twenty-six points per game last season in sixty-seven games and turns twenty-six next week along with being under his current contract for the next three years with a player option for a fourth campaign.

Mitchell shoots well (forty-five percent total, thirty-five from three-point range), can handle the ball and create his own shot, and isn't completely offensively devoted to himself as a good passer with over five assists per game last season.

Mitchell's best position is shooting guard and the hope is that Mitchell and Darius Garland can mesh together in the backcourt where Garland and the departed (in this trade) Collin Sexton never did.

Mitchell can play the point, so should a situation such as an injury to Garland occur, Mitchell is more than capable of running the team from the point.

The main deficiency in Mitchell's game is that he is well below average as a defender and while Darius Garland has made some defensive strides, Garland couldn't be considered a strong defender either.

Both Mitchell and Garland are only 6'1 and some of the issues with the backcourt of Garland and Sexton was playing two small guards together as a regular pair and size-wise, the Cavaliers didn't get bigger, so it's reasonable to wonder about the size issue and the defensive problems that are sure to come with a smaller backcourt.

Cleveland will hope that with solid defenders at forward in Evan Mobley and Isaac Okoro and a rim protector in Jarrett Allen that with work, tutoring, and trying to funnel opposing offenses towards their waiting their better and larger defenders that they can camouflage some of the defensive weaknesses.

If Garland and Mitchell can improve even a little bit defensively to even a little below average to average, Cleveland should be thrilled with that result.

The cost was high for a player of Mitchell's caliber and Cleveland was willing to pay the tab with a package of Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton (Sexton signed a contract with Cleveland so he could be included in the trade). recent first-round draft pick Ochai Agbaji, unprotected first-round selections in 2025,2027, and 2029 as well as giving the Jazz the option to flip first-rounders with Cleveland in 2026 and 2028.

It is difficult to look at such a package and not think that the cost was prohibitive but the cost of acquiring stars has become more expensive of late compared to the cost that Minnesota paid for Rudy Gobert (Also with Utah, Minnesota trading five players, four first-rounders and one option to swap first rounders for Gobert), Cleveland paid less for a better player.

I liked Lauri Markkanen and trading him away will move the team away from the "Big" lineup that helped the Cavaliers to their success that didn't go by the wayside until injuries at various times to Markkanen, Mobley, and Allen but Cleveland could be on the lookout for a similar player in the next season or and while Markkanen is a nice player, I think he could be replaced fairly easily especially when Cleveland gains cap space after next season when the contracts of Kevin Love and Caris LeVert could (should they decide to move on from both) open up almost forty-eight million dollars on the salary cap.

I was never as big of a fan of Collin Sexton as many Cavaliers fans have been and while I liked his scoring. Sexton was always a high-effort player, Sexton didn't appeal to me as a building block player and made me think of him as a player that would be a sixth or seventh man/instant offense performer on a good team or if you had to rely on him as one of your two top scorers that the odds were that your team wasn't a very good one.

Still, Sexton can score and there is always a spot in the league for a player that has a career scoring average of twenty points a game on the mark.

Ochai Agbaji was the Cavaliers first-round pick from Kansas, who Cleveland hoped could give them some help on the wing with some improved outside shooting but Koby Altman never seemed thrilled with owning a first-rounder after the Cavaliers late-season swoon (had Cleveland made the playoffs, the pick would have been shipped to Indiana as part of the Caris LeVert trade) and Agbaji doesn't appear to have the upside to be more than a situational player, so I don't think Altman was overly concerned about his inclusion in the trade.

I know that three first-rounders sound like a lot to throw in and it is but Cleveland hopes that obtaining Mitchell will make those selections late first-rounders and therefore worth less in moving them along.

My concern there is Cleveland trading so many down the road, especially the 2029 first-rounder which one has no idea what type of pick that could be as it will be used by Utah three years after Donovan Mitchell's current contract expires and he could very well be long gone from Cleveland by then.

I think this trade appears to be a good return for both sides and it is not often that I can say that.

Cleveland brought in a three-time All-Star at only twenty-six and did so without disrupting the three players (Garland, Mobley, and Allen) that are the core of their rebuilding process.

Utah receives two players that can be plugged into their starting lineup in Markkanen and Sexton to either use or showcase to continue to stockpile draft choices, adds essentially another number one in Ochai Agabji to develop, and all of that draft ammunition to either use themselves or move around to help them add other assets.

I do have a few questions mainly about the defensive problems that will have to be worked around with Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland playing on the floor at the same time and wondering about how long it will take for Mitchell and Garland to develop the always-talked-about chemistry.

Still, for the various faults that Koby Altman has shown in personnel, one has to give him credit for being willing to take the big swing in making trades and he's taken a big swing with this one.

Cavaliers select Ochai Agbaji

      The Cleveland Cavaliers were connected to several players at the fourteenth pick of the first round and the final pick of the "lottery teams".

The two players that were most often mentioned as realistic possibilities were both available with the Cavaliers selection with Kansas senior Ochai Agbaji and Ohio State freshman Malaki Branham there for the picking.

I don't watch nearly the amount of college basketball as I once did, so I relied on a few videos and the recommendations of others to form an opinion of who I was hoping to see Cleveland add and I could see reasons to add either of the two players.

Agbaji played four seasons for Kansas and was the Big 12 player of the year when he led the Jayhawks to the national title averaging 18.8 points per game, shooting 47.5 from the floor and forty percent from three-point range.

Branham averaged thirteen points a game, shot almost fifty percent, and was playing extremely well at the end of the season for Ohio State.

Agbaji is the better shooter, has the higher floor of the two players, and is expected to contribute faster, while Branham may have the chance to be the better player long-term, he may also have a higher chance of busting.

I would have been okay with either player but I also would have wondered a bit about either and after Cleveland selected Ochai Agbaji, I wondered even more.

The 6'5 Agbaji certainly has the shooting range and I think at worst, he will be a player that can knock down the open shot but I am not sure how he will do at creating his shot and not being the focus of the offense as he was at Kansas.

Agbaji improved in each of his four years at Kansas and that is another problem in today's NBA players that stay the full four years at college tend to be more mature and ready to play than younger players but they also don't make the improvements from year to year that younger players do.

In other words, the player that shows up as a rookie is pretty much what you will see for the rest of their career.

What I also found interesting were the comments by Koby Altman that the team sees Agbaji as a "2", not a "3" (shooting guard more than a small forward) and that's interesting because that's the position that the returning Collin Sexton, Caris LeVert, for a chunk of last season Isaac Okoro plays.

If Cleveland sees Agbaji as a 3, perhaps something more could be about to happen with the roster as I just don't see enough minutes for all four of those players to be pleased.

Collin Sexton is still a restricted free agent and I suppose the team could allow him to leave or work out a trade, LeVert has one season remaining on his contract, and Okoro has been inconsistent offensively, so there is some room for movement.

The Cavaliers biggest need was and is at wing/three/small forward and I'm not sure that Agbaji changes anything there other than adding some outside shooting, which they also need.

Still, I think Agabaji has a chance to be a nice player if not an impactful one and I still think that situation seems a bit crowded and could see a shakeup before the season.

Cleveland has been rumored to be one of the teams mentioned to be in talks with the San Antonio Spurs for Dejounte Murray, who would be a major addition of course but I'm not sure that the Cavaliers have what the Spurs are looking for in a package for Murray, especially if the Atlanta Hawks are offering John Collins as is also rumored.

Cleveland bought the Sacramento Kings second rounder before the draft for 1.75 million and the rights to Euro Sasha Venzenko, who will likely never play in the NBA, to give them three second-rounders, and to my surprise, the team actually used all of those choices and I'll be giving them a look tonight or over the weekend.