As if there was not already enough unnecessary trade speculation involving Donovan Mitchell, we now have a mock trade. This one comes from James Piercey of NBA Analysis Network and has the Cavs sending Mitchell to the Knicks (shocker). The mock trade is as follows.
New York receives Donovan Mitchell.
Cleveland receives RJ Barrett, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Quentin Grimes, in addition to New York’s 2026, 2028, and 2030 first-round draft picks.
Jesus tapdancing Christ, what are we doing here?
The only way a trade like this would be considered from Cleveland’s perspective is Donovan Mitchell straight-up requested a trade to the Knicks. That’s it. Cleveland made multiple moves in the offseason to improve their supporting cast in order to make a deep postseason. They are very much invested in being competitive this season and a trade such as this one would make them further from rather than closer to that.
RJ Barrett is a good player, but Donovan Mitchell is better. This is an undeniable fact. Too much stock is being put into one playoff series that saw the entire Cavaliers team play poorly. There would be one positive in this swap and that is Barrett being under contract for four more seasons while Mitchell’s deal expires after the 2024-25 season. This is assuming he declines his player option for the 2025-26 season which is a near certainty.
The hypothetical addition of Grimes is interesting due to his ability to shoot the three. However, the Cavs sought out help this offseason in order to address that very issue. Max Strus’ 197 made three-pointers ranked 21st and Georges Niang’s 154 was 48th. Where did Grimes finish? Just three spots ahead of Niang with three more three-point makes. Taking this into consideration the appeal sort of dissipates just a bit.
A big man and draft picks
As far as Hartenstein is concerned, Cleveland already had him once. There is not really a reason to bring him back at this time. And to be fair, his inclusion in the deal is just to make the money work as the author admitted in the brief blurb regarding Hartenstein. Additionally, it was noted that Cleveland may not want Hartenstein.
One quick thing about the draft picks. The Knicks are supposed to be good right? So the likelihood that these end up being lottery picks is incredibly small. An argument could be made that the Cavs could use them to acquire a superstar-type player. But they did that already by sending picks and players to Utah for Donovan Mitchell. Why would they go down the same road they have previously and perform a literal repeat? The answer is they wouldn’t.
There is simply no reason for the Cavs to entertain this hypothetical trade package for Donovan Mitchell at this time.
