Donovan Mitchell traded to the Cavs

He is a stud. People do have VW rated higher than him. The tankers will be out in force. The Rockets need to get on the same page and build cohesiveness more than tanking though. I would be happy if we won 30-32 games. I admit we still need another stud from this draft and that may not happen.

 

Any brainless dolt would realise the difference between a 'star' and a 'superstar'.

Every team hopes to get a superstar.

Stars don't take you to the promise land in this league. Any brainless dolt would know that.

When you don't have superstars, you do what you can do to get them. Any brainless dolt would know that.

It seems not every brainless dolt realises being stuck in basketball purgatory with no real avenue for improvement isn't the place any team wants to be.

I thought every brainless dolt would realise taking a step back to increase your chances at a superstar is better than being stuck in basketball purgatory knowing you cannot win. Apparently not.

You're too easy.

 

Aren't you the big brain that wanted to trade the farm for Rudy Gay?

 

We should get a pretty good player with a Top 10 pick. If we aren’t picking in that range, then things went really well and we aren’t depending on that pick anyway.

 

Agree completely. I feel he doesn't get enough grief for facilitating the, arguably, worst trade of all time.

 

Because at some point it will work.

 

Not necessarily (see Kings).

 

He has drafted three MVPs before

 

This is a bomb for the Cavs, who literally traded the face of their effort to move on from LeBron to get the caliber of player it takes to actually move on from LeBron.

Collin Sexton is the player the Cavs took with the “Brooklyn pick,” i.e. the unprotected 2018 Nets’ first-rounder they held onto for dear life rather than trade during James’ last season in Cleveland. Sexton mostly struggled here for three seasons, drawing the ire of veteran teammates through some combination of his rookie mistakes, his myopic court vision or those veterans’ jealousy over how protected they felt Sexton was.

All of that started to change last season, when the Cavs, with Darius Garland, Jarrett Allen and rookie Evan Mobley, suddenly were in the business of telling Sexton he had to fit in around teammates rather than teammates fitting in around him. He’d been the leading scorer on a bad team. If he was going to lead Cleveland in scoring again, it was going to be on different terms. Then, Sexton suffered a season-ending knee injury and the Cavs performed way above expectation without him, getting to the Play-In finale.

All of a sudden, Sexton was a restricted free agent coming off knee surgery, searching for a big payday from a franchise that was already well stocked in the backcourt and not looking to eat into future financial flexibility to acquire an All Star. — Joe Vardon
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It’s also a happy ending for Sexton, who receives a four-year, $72 million extension from the Jazz as part of the deal. Thus ends a strange four-year odyssey in Cleveland for Sexton, who was pumped up as the face of the franchise when he arrived but left without a contract offer this summer.

The Cavs had offered a three-year, $45 million extension at one point last summer before yanking the deal off the table. Sexton fired his agent and hired Rich Paul for his restricted free agency this summer. The relationship between the two sides soured a bit, according to multiple sources, when the Cavs wouldn’t make Sexton an offer but wouldn’t release him from his qualifying offer, either. The Cavs seemed content letting Sexton, who struggled to get an offer sheet in free agency, play out this season on the qualifying offer before allowing Sexton to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

The deal for Mitchell emerged at the perfect time, getting Sexton paid elsewhere while avoiding an uncomfortable scenario this season in Cleveland. — Jason Lloyd
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Most notably, Sexton signed for four years, $72 million, which is worth a column in its own right. Sexton is kind of the second coming of Monta Ellis: a guy who can score 27 a game for a 25-win team while his team’s fans howl in anger that he should be in the All-Star Game. Alas, he is a much more difficult fit in the lineup of a team with elite aspirations.

It’s somewhat ironic that he was traded for another undersized, high-scoring guard. Sexton and Mitchell have similarities at an extreme surface level: Sexton’s 34.0 points per 100 possessions on 57.3 True Shooting in 2020-21 is a first-glance doppelgänger for Mitchell’s 37.8 points per 100 on 57.2 True Shooting a year ago.

The difference is that Mitchell is at least an average passer and defender, while Sexton is … let’s call it a wee bit less than average. Sexton is one of the worst defenders in captivity by most advanced metrics, and his inability to play point guard at 6-1 exacerbates that issue. His best role on a real team is likely a high-volume second-unit bucket-getter, but he’ll likely be the go-to guy once Utah finishes its teardown. — John Hollinger
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It’s weird, the Barrett piece. I had heard pretty strongly earlier in the summer that the Knicks weren’t actually all that convinced Barrett was worth a big extension and their priority was holding onto Quentin Grimes – whom this front office, of course, took late in the first round last year. (And, of course, this front office did not draft Barrett.) Well, they held onto Barrett and Grimes, and now they need to find another target for all of those future firsts. — David Aldridge
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The Jazz are, according to sources, also engaged in trade conversations around its remaining pieces, namely veterans forward Bojan Bogdanovic, guard Mike Conley and guard Jordan Clarkson. But, with Mitchell now in Cleveland and Rudy Gobert in Minnesota, the franchise has officially turned the page on that era. For the Jazz, it’s all about how to open a new window they hope can possibly lead to a title.

It also ends a very public and sometimes controversial trade conversation with the Knicks that featured on again and off again dealings, offers, counter offers and conversation on leverage. The Knicks were seen as heavy favorites to land Mitchell, and as perhaps the only team in the league with the kind of assets capable of prying him from the Jazz. At the end of the day, according to sources, the Knicks would not part with the third unprotected first round pick the Jazz wanted in a package that would have been headlined by small forward RJ Barrett, which had become a snag point in talks for an extended period of time.

Even as negotiations broke off Monday night, sources say the Knicks believed the Jazz would come back to the table, with the belief that the Knicks had the best package for Mitchell, coupled with the belief that the Jazz had no other options on the market. On multiple occasions, sources told The Athletic that the Jazz were intrigued by offers from multiple teams other than the Knicks, and the Jazz would maintain that. In the end, the Jazz decided to take the package from Cleveland.

After Monday night, Utah never spoke to New York again concerning Mitchell.

…

As recently as last week, the Cavaliers put an offer on the table to the Jazz concerning Mitchell. The Jazz liked that offer but wanted to continue negotiating with the Knicks, with whom they were still in talks. Those talks reached the serious stage over the weekend, according to league sources, and actually came close to completion. The two sides were close enough, according to sources, that the Jazz had come to a package that they could live with. That package would have brought Barrett to Utah, but the deal didn’t get finished.

On Monday, the Knicks came to terms with Barrett on a rookie extension that could bring him as much as $120 million over the next four years. The Jazz, sources say, still wanted to pursue Barrett, even after the extension. But on Tuesday morning, the Cavaliers, upon finding out the Jazz and Knicks had broken off talks, contacted the Jazz. The two sides worked for the next two days and swiftly came to a deal. The Jazz, according to sources, did not go back to the Knicks to give them an opportunity to beat Cleveland’s offer.

Is Cleveland’s package better than what New York’s best package could have been? No.

Is it better than the final package the Knicks offered? Yes.

But at this point, the Jazz were kind of over it all as a front office. They wanted to know which direction they were taking with their final roster. The negotiation with the Knicks had been a long and winding road that led to nowhere. The process lasted almost two months. Labor Day was approaching. It was time for the Jazz to start making some real decisions. — Tony Jones
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Here is the combined trade return for the Jazz’s two All-Stars:
Collin Sexton
Lauri Markkanen
Malik Beasley
Jarred Vanderbilt
Talen Horton-Tucker (acquired from the Lakers for Patrick Beverley, who was part of the Gobert deal)
Stanley Johnson (see above)
Ochai Agbaji
Walker Kessler
Leandro Bolmaro
Three unprotected first-round picks from Minnesota (2023, 2025, 2027)
Three unprotected first-round picks from Cleveland (2025, 2027, 2029)
One 2029 top-5 protected pick from Minnesota
Two first-round pick swaps with Minnesota (2026, 2028)
Two first-round pick swaps with Cleveland (2026, 2028)

 

It feels like a no lose situation. I do prefer getting Victor or Scoot over 5-10 extra wins, but will be happy knowing those 5-10 likely represent some quantifiable sign of progress considering our roster age.

Whether we win 5-10 more games or not doesn't heavily influence my belief in the talent of this young group.

Green/Scoot H or Victor/Jabari has multi-year championship levels of talent though.

 

are the cavs now the heavy favorite to come out of the east for the championship?

this changes things

 

I thought the Cavs were a good fit, but didn't think the Jazz would want the Sexton or Allen, since Sexton needed to get paid and Allen just got paid. Thought they would prefer the picks and flexibility the Knicks or Pelicans could offer.

 

San Antonio won championships long after the basketball pundits decided they were done — without blowing it up.

Call me when Ainge’s strategy produces a championship. Ainge had one of the most lopsided trades in the history of the game — still no championship.

Ainge basically spent 2 months enacting his “strategy” to be the gm of the jazz for 10 years. No top coach would ever hire on to be Ainge’s patsy because they know he’s about Ainge and nobody else. Why he had to go to the college ranks to get Brad Stevens.

Again, the jazz are in purgatory right now — they just don’t know it yet. A 10 year purgatory.

 

Are you being sarcastic? Mobley was decent for a rookie, but he is way overrated on this board. Once Allen went down, he was very average. Mitchell is a good offensive player, but not a two way player. The Cavs are 2 or 3 players away from contention.

 

big if true

 

Mobley struggled offensively, which is what most thought would be the case, but he was absolutely dominant defensively. There's an argument for Scottie Barnes over Mobley as the top rookie since he was solid on both ends of the court, but Mobley was a close #2.

So yeah, I think you are downplaying it quite a bit.

 

Better than Daughtery, Nance and Price?

I feel at best they would be a poor man's Boston though at least for a season or 2. I just don't see how their offense will fit together and flow given their main pieces. I'm also not as high on Mobley's offensive potential or likelihood or nearing his offense ceiling as the national NBA-niks are assuming.

I still feel that Milwaukee, Philly, Boston, and Miami are probably better than Cavs for at least the next 2 seasons. If the Nets have mind/heart transplants, they would be too.

Cavs are probably at best of the next tier with Chicago, Toronto, and Atlanta.

 

Mobley was definitely very good as a defender for being a rookie. But I didn't see the defensive awareness of being say a lock down defender. True he wasn't really billed to be that. And he could easily develop into an elite help defender and clean up guy who can do spot duty on guards, a la Robert Williams with a bit more length. And yes that would put him the running for DPOY eventually.

The raw skills and flashes are completely there, but people act like he is only a few steps removed from being finished product. He is not.