Donovan Mitchell believes Cavaliers are ready to take next step: ‘Always another level’

BRADENTON, Fla. — At the very least, Donovan Mitchell no longer has to answer those questions for a while.

When are you coming to New York? You’re not staying in Cleveland.

“I’m in some group chats with friends. I’ve got a lot of Heat friends, I’ve got a lot of New York friends,” Mitchell said last week, as the Cavaliers got out of Cleveland for a few days to hold training camp at IMG Academy in this west Florida town, which is also the spring training home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. (The Cavs left town before the formation of Hurricane Milton, the terrifying storm that made landfall Wednesday night near Siesta Key, Fla., about 20 miles south.)

“So you hear that,” Mitchell said. “It’s all part of it. But my friends respected it, and my family. Everyone was respectful, like, all right, let me chill out. It never got to a point — maybe the first summer, when I got traded from Utah. That was the only time it got stressful. And I was like, ‘I’m not even a basketball player right now. I don’t want to hear it.’ But after that, it became so normal that I was just accustomed to it. You didn’t realize how much it was until you’re out from under it.”

From the moment the Cavs went all-in on Sept. 1, 2022, to get Mitchell from the Jazz, there was unending speculation he’d bolt for the Knicks or the Heat the minute he hit free agency, which was scheduled to commence in the summer of 2025. He’s from New York; he’s a New York sports fan; his father has worked for the Mets for years. But Mitchell’s commitment to Cleveland in July, a three-year, $150 million extension, keeps him with the Cavaliers until at least 2027, when he’d be eligible for a five-year max extension in the $380 million range.

Mitchell taking himself off the board gives Cleveland a window, a real one, for its young core, and especially forward Evan Mobley, to reach full maturity together. After consecutive playoff appearances the last two years, the Cavs wanted to enter playoff grad school and figure out how to better compete in the postseason following a five-game dispatching by the Boston Celtics in the second round in May. Cleveland replaced J.B. Bickerstaff with Kenny Atkinson behind the bench, but otherwise, the Cavaliers are running it back, looking to improve from within.

Their core group has won 99 regular-season games the last two years. Eight of their top 10 players are between 23 and 28; only Caris LeVert and Georges Niang are 30 or older. Along with Mitchell, the Cavs also locked up Mobley (five years, $224 million, through the 2029-30 season), Allen (three years, $91 million, through 2028-29) and forward Isaac Okoro (three years, $38 million, through 2026-27) with extensions. They’re pot committed now, locked in to getting better with the guys they have.

“There’s always another level,” Mitchell said. “You feel that, and going against them, you definitely walk off the floor against Boston feeling like, all right, (Boston’s great). But I don’t think we’re far away.”

It’s a fair bet, with Cleveland’s talent. But it’s nonetheless a bet.

Defense isn’t the issue. The Cavs were top 10 in defensive rating last season (112.1), tied for fifth in defended field goal percentage and seventh in points allowed per game (110.2).

The Athletic reported in May that there were multiple internal questions that needed addressing, above and beyond in-game coaching decisions or how the team practiced. Mitchell and Darius Garland, both huge talents, each remains just 6-foot-1, and each remains best with the ball in their hands. Neither Mobley nor Allen stretches the floor consistently; Mobley shot a career-best 37.3 percent from deep in the regular season but was just 5 of 18 in Cleveland’s two playoff series. Allen has taken just 111 total 3s in his first seven pro seasons.

Garland says he doesn’t want to be traded, but there are clearly other places where he would be more of a traditional point guard. If you take him at his word, and he wants to stay, Atkinson’s primary challenge is creating more movement for Cleveland’s backcourt, where both guards become more dangerous targets off the ball, the way the Golden State Warriors created so many great looks for Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. No, Mitchell and Garland aren’t the Splash Brothers. But they’re very, very good. For Cleveland to get better, though, its offense can’t devolve into your turn-my turn through its guards.

Garland’s stats were down last season after he missed a month with a broken jaw, but he’s already heard what he wants to hear from Atkinson.

“He wants me to shoot as many 3s as I can,” Garland said. “He wants me to get up to eight to 10 3s a game. He wants me to shoot all the open ones, shoot ’em with confidence. He told me, be free, play my game, play with the joy I always had.”

All coaches bring their experiences to their next job. (Bickerstaff does too. He’s from a basketball family. He knows how to coach. It is not a coincidence the Detroit Pistons scarfed him up seven seconds or so after the Cavs fired him.) And Atkinson has a deep reservoir from which to revamp Cleveland’s offense.

You want to help Garland become more of a catch-and-shoot threat? Atkinson could dip into the actions the Atlanta Hawks used during their 60-win seasons under Mike Budenholzer, when Atkinson was an assistant there, to get Kyle Korver open looks. You want to make things easier for Mitchell in the half court? Incorporate the Warriors’ famous split actions for their guards cutting off post entry passes; Atkinson saw those while on the Dubs’ bench the last three years. You want to get Allen more involved offensively? He did quite well as a roller and cutter early in his career in the “Fist” series Atkinson employed in his first NBA head coaching stint in Brooklyn.

For good measure, Atkinson spent this summer as the lead assistant for legendary coach Vincent Collet on the French national team, seeing how Victor Wembanyama’s presence tilted the floor, opening up straight-line drives for guards like Isaïa Cordinier.

But every team’s personnel dictates what a coach uses.

“It’s the biggest challenge, this wealth of information, especially when you’ve been in the league a while,” Atkinson said last week. “How do you pare it down where it fits your team, your personnel? I can definitely cherry-pick stuff. At Golden State, we played with two bigs a lot, with Loon (Kevon Looney) and Draymond (Green). Not saying that’s JA and Evan; they’re kind of different. But there are definitely some things (to use).”

Long-term, though, Atkinson is tasked with prioritizing the 23-year-old Mobley’s continued development. He’s the Cav who most in the organization think has multiple higher levels to reach. He’s the guy around whom the franchise most sees itself capable of being a sustained contender. If the Warriors played through Green in the low post, letting him read and react, Cleveland could potentially do even more playing through Mobley. But that means his usage has to go way up, and others’, primarily Mitchell’s, has to come down.

Per Dunks & Threes, Mitchell was 10th in the league last season in usage rate, at 30.3. Garland was the next-highest Cavalier, ranking 54th in the league (25.1). Mobley was tied for … 145th, at 20.1.

Upping Mobley’s touches will change the Cavs’ half-court gravity and spacing. Allen’s already going to be lifted most of the time to let Mitchell and Garland cut off the ball. But a more involved Mobley on offense can make Cleveland much, much harder to guard.

That will make for occasionally tough talks, as the Cavs and Atkinson figure one another out, and roles are redefined, and the new staff pushes returning players not to settle, not to fall into old habits. But this group has been together for a while. Continuity helps when you have to get real with one another.

“It allows us to have those conversations,” Mitchell said. “All right, this is where Donovan’s strengths are. This is what he sees. This is what Darius sees. This is what Evan sees. This is what JA sees. I know Ev’s going to be here, but in Kenny’s new system, Ev, you can’t be here no more; you have to be on this side. Or, Don, you’re not walking the ball up; you’re getting to the corner, and Ev’s handling.

“Being able to be together, you’re having those conversations. … Being together for two years and having success and having failure, different things, that allows you to talk that out amongst each other.”

These are, compared to many around the league, good problems to have. The Cavs, like the Orlando Magic, are set up for an extended run in the Eastern Conference, as the teams currently ahead of them age out in the next few years. They will start to have major tax issues starting with 2025-26, when most of the new deals kick in, but none of the new deals are untradeable if it comes to that down the road. They’re breaking ground Monday on a new downtown practice facility on the Cuyahoga River, scheduled to open in 2027.

First things first, though. Mitchell’s blood pressure has returned to normal. Start from there.

“Even throughout all that, you get numb to it,” he said. “I guess it’s a product of life. You don’t realize how stressful it was until you’re out of it. But when you’re in it, you’re like, this is just a product of life. This is how life is. Everybody’s going to ask the question.

“But I knew what it was. My teammates knew what it was, so that made it easy. They knew what it was, and my coaches and all that. To be able to be here and be free of all that and just focus on home, that’s the biggest thing. I signed, it’s great, and I’m happy. But there’s more to be done.”

Required Reading

(Photo of Donovan Mitchell: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)