CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell carried a heavy burden final season, the load of expectations and hypothesis about his future combining to make each transfer on and off the courtroom a problem.
It has been lifted. The All-Star guard is freed.
“I can are available right here now and breathe,” Mitchell stated Monday in his first public feedback since signing a three-year, $150.3 million contract extension with the Cavaliers in July.
All these rumors about him eager to play in New York are over. All of the discuss him testing the market as a free agent silenced. All of the social media theories have ceased. Mitchell is not going anyplace for a while.
Cleveland has change into house. Why?
“Why not?” he stated. “I adore it right here.”
Mitchell, who was traded from Utah to the Cavs in 2022, felt an instantaneous reference to town from the second he arrived. He likes the tempo and the individuals. He can deal with the tough winters, joking “I costume higher within the chilly,” and stated in January he concluded that it was the perfect place for him to proceed his profession.
With a powerful core of gamers, the Cavs have one thing good going, and Mitchell, one of many sport’s greatest guards who was seen as the ultimate piece to return the membership to NBA title rivalry, solely makes it higher.
The 28-year-old spent a lot of final season coping with questions on his dedication to the Cavs, who overcame quite a few accidents and superior to the Jap Convention semifinals earlier than dropping to eventual champion Boston.
Typically awkward, it was virtually a every day dance. Will he signal? Will he depart? And whereas Mitchell appeared to deal with it properly, he admitted it grew to become exhausting — for everybody.
“That is my first media day in in all probability three years the place I haven’t got individuals asking me what does it take for me to remain someplace?” Mitchell stated, chatting with a big media contingent inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “Do not understate the way it turns into quite a bit. Not even simply [for] myself however my teammates and to reply these questions as a result of that is an actual factor, too.”
The “looming cloud,” as he referred to as it, has dissipated.
“It is refreshing,” he stated. “I am excited to be right here. I am excited to be a part of this group now. The largest factor is now that I’ve signed the contract and we’re right here and now there’s an expectation. It is not like we simply signed and that is the tip aim. We’re comfortable, no matter. There’s an expectation for us to do huge issues. That is sort of the place my thoughts is at.”
Bodily, Mitchell is in place as properly. A nagging knee harm impacted him down the stretch of the common season, and he battled a calf harm all through the postseason earlier than lastly succumbing and sitting out Cleveland’s ultimate two video games in opposition to the Celtics.
Now coming into his eighth season, Mitchell has realized what works and what would not. He is paying extra consideration to vitamin, hiring a full-time chef who travels with him. He waited longer than regular earlier than starting his offseason conditioning program, giving his physique extra time to recuperate.
“I am not 22 anymore,” he stated. “However I am not 33.”
The Cavs are operating it again this season with the identical roster, however a brand new coach in Kenny Atkinson, employed to switch J.B. Bickerstaff. It is early however Mitchell has already bonded with Atkinson, who made it a degree to go to his high participant this summer season.
That’s, after he bought achieved messaging him in the course of the night time from the Olympics. Atkinson was an assistant on France’s nationwide staff however that did not preclude him from touching base with Mitchell and the remainder of Cleveland’s gamers.
“It is like 4 a.m. and he is texting me learn how to slip out of screens and again screens and completely different actions and various things,” Mitchell stated, smiling. “So, I am unable to complain when you will have a coach that is doing that for certain. So for him to try this, I feel it reveals how a lot he cares, the eagerness behind it.”
