The Cleveland Cavaliers have yet to make it past the second round of the playoffs with star guard Donovan Mitchell spearheading things. But Cleveland’s lack of playoff success in recent years probably shouldn’t be chalked up to any lack of willingness from the team to make moves or efforts to put the right pieces around the 29-year-old.
After all, the Cavaliers have made sure that Mitchell has played with a whole lot of talented players during his time in Cleveland. Former Cavaliers big man Kendrick Perkins went so far as to claim that Cleveland has done more to make Mitchell successful than it did for franchise icon LeBron James.
“Donovan Mitchell ass on the clock too, by the way,” Perkins said. “He’s on the clock. And I mean this from the bottom of my soul. Look, the Cleveland Cavaliers has done more, meaning made more trades, whatever it takes, of surrounding Donovan Mitchell to be successful than they did for LeBron James.”
Perkins pointed to the Cavs making “big moves” during the Mitchell era. He listed some specific moves the team has made, like firing previous head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, hiring the coach “that he (Mitchell) wanted,” adding wing De’Andre Hunter at last season’s trade deadline, being in the second apron and more recently trading for newcomers James Harden, Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis.
He continued.
“Aye, man,” he said. “D-Mitchell, you on the clock, brother. You gotta make something happen. Minimum, minimum, for this to even be a success, your ass gotta get to the conference finals, something that you’ve never done.”
The Cavaliers assembled an incredibly deep and talented team around Mitchell last season. During the regular season, Cleveland won 64 games (the most of any team in the Eastern Conference), and it even acquired Hunter midway through the season to better prepare the squad for a deep run in the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
Unfortunately, Mitchell wasn’t able to help that uber-talented group accomplish anything of note in the playoffs, as the team flamed out in the second round at the hands of the Indiana Pacers. Mitchell, however, did have some huge games in those playoffs. Injury luck wasn’t on Cleveland’s side as it tried to make a run.
Fast forward to current day, and the franchise just recently made one seismic move to help Mitchell. Shortly before the trade deadline, it sent homegrown star Darius Garland and a second-round pick to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Harden. Harden is one of the league’s better offensive talents even at his advanced age, and such a win-now move only puts more pressure on Mitchell to lead the team to greater heights.
While obviously it’s still too early to judge the Harden deal one way or another, it has aged relatively well thus far. The floor general was great in his Cavaliers debut against the Sacramento Kings over the weekend, as he scored 23 points with eight assists and converted on all but three of his eight 3-point attempts. Harden was a big reason why Cleveland managed to pick up a road win.