The Cavaliers star shrugged off his exclusion from the 2026 East All-Star starters.
Cleveland Cavaliers superstar Donovan Mitchell kept it simple upon learning that he didn't make it to the cut of the official Eastern Conference starters in this year's NBA All-Star Game.
Cleveland Cavaliers / Schedule
"To be honest, I kind of expected that," he said after the Cavs' 136-104 blowout loss against the OKC Thunder. "The guys that were named, their record is better than ours, so naturally you reward that.
"Obviously, yeah, I want to be a starter for sure, but I understand that at the end of the day, we win games, everybody gets rewarded. We haven’t won games at the rate we would like to, and that’s what comes first—everything else comes with that."
Mitchell got edged by Jalen Brunson (New York), Tyrese Maxey (Philadelphia), Cade Cunningham (Detroit), Jaylen Brown (Boston) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee) in the final East tally.
Except Antetokounmpo, who drew the second-highest votes just behind LA Lakers star Luka Doncic, the four of Brunson, Maxey, Cunningham and Brown have a better team record than Mitchell.
With the loss against the Thunder, Mitchell and the Cavs have dropped to 24-20. They are currently in a shaky 7th in the Eastern Conference standings.
Although it's disappointing, considering that he's having his best individual season with a career-high 29.0 points with 5.7 assists and 4.8 boards, Mitchell completely understands the circumstances that led to his exclusion from the East starters in Los Angeles.
"Honestly, no," Mitchell said if he heard the announcement before the game. "I didn’t want to. I didn’t know what had happened, but you can assume, because no one said anything, right? But no, I didn’t want to know.
"I didn’t find out until, I would say, probably once. ... Typically they’d say something during the game. So once I heard it, I was like, 'All right, well, it is what it is.' "
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