Donovan Mitchell just lost a four-game sweep at home. He was in no mood to play the LeBron James homecoming game.
After the Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated 130-93 by the Knicks on Monday night, a reporter asked Mitchell whether he wanted to see LeBron James return to Cleveland in free agency. Mitchell shut the question down before it could even land.
“That is not for me. I am not trying to get a headline. That’s a [President of Basketball Operations] Koby Altman question, that’s a [General Manager] Mike Gansey question,” Mitchell said, via Danny Cunningham on Locked On Cavs.
This Was the Right Call by Mitchell
Mitchell handled that question like a veteran who has been around the block. If he says yes, it gets twisted into Donovan recruiting LeBron and tampering whispers begin. If he says no, every Cleveland fan in the world will accuse him of pushing the franchise icon away. There is no winning answer.
So he punted to the front office, which is exactly where the question belongs. Altman and Gansey are the ones who actually decide who gets contract offers. Mitchell is the guy who has to play with them.
The other layer here is that LeBron is currently a free agent. The 21-year veteran has a player option decision coming up after another year of carrying a Lakers team that bowed out early. He turns 42 in December. His next stop matters for the league more than any other free agent on the board.
A LeBron Cleveland Return Makes Sense, Just Not Yet
The romantic ending is obvious. LeBron grew up in Akron. He has already won two titles in two stints with Cleveland. He could come home one last time, play with Mitchell and Mobley, and ride off into retirement with a third Larry O’Brien.
The basketball math is harder. The Cavaliers are deep into the second apron. They have all-time bad cap flexibility. Adding LeBron means trading away real rotation pieces just to make the numbers work. And after a sweep, those pieces matter.
It is also fair to ask what version of LeBron the Cavs would actually be getting. He averaged 23.5 points last season for the Lakers, but he missed 25 games. His defense slipped. His three-point volume dropped. Cleveland would be paying for the name and the marketing, not the production.
Mitchell Has Bigger Worries
Mitchell has a player option of his own next summer. He played at an All-NBA level all season and is one of the few stars in this league capable of carrying an offense in May.
Cleveland needs to fix what just happened. Kenny Atkinson is back. The core is too expensive to flip. The Mitchell-Mobley pairing is going to get another year together. A LeBron addition would be a nice cherry on top, but it would not fix the deeper issues that the Knicks just put on tape.
Mitchell knows that. He just refused to be the guy who has to talk about it on national TV. Good call.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
