CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell carried a heavy load last season, the weight of expectations and speculation about his future combining to make every move on and off the court a challenge.
It was raised. The All-Star guard is released.
“I can come in here now and breathe,” Mitchell said Monday in his first public comments since signing a three-year, $150.3 million contract extension with the Cavaliers in July.
All those rumors about him wanting to play in New York are over. All the talk of him testing the market as a free agent has died down. All social media theories have stopped. Mitchell won’t be going anywhere for a while.
Cleveland became home. Why?
“Why not?” he said. “I love it here.”
Mitchell, who was traded from Utah to the Cavs in 2022, felt an immediate connection with the city from the moment he arrived. He likes the pace and the people. He can handle the harsh winters, joking “I dress better in the cold,” and said in January that he concluded it was the best place for him to continue his career.
With a strong core of players, the Cavs have something good, and Mitchell, one of the best guards in the game, who was viewed as the final piece to return the club to NBA title contention, only makes it better.
The 28-year-old spent much of last season dealing with questions about his commitment to the Cavs, who overcame numerous injuries and advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals before losing to eventual champion Boston.
Often awkward, it was almost a daily dance. Will he sign? Will he leave? And while Mitchell seemed to be handling it well, he admitted it got exhausting — for everyone.
“This is my first media day in probably three years where I don’t have people asking me, what does it take for me to stay somewhere?” Mitchell said, speaking to a large media contingent inside Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. “Don’t underestimate how much it becomes. Not even just [for] myself but my teammates and answer these questions because that’s also a real thing.”
The “mindful cloud,” as he called it, dissipated.
“It’s refreshing,” he said. “I’m excited to be here. I’m excited to be part of this group now. The biggest thing is now that I signed the contract and we’re here and now there’s a wait. It’s not like we just signed. and that is the end goal. We’re happy, whatever it is, that we do great things.”
Physically, Mitchell is in a good place as well. A nagging knee injury plagued him throughout the regular season, and he battled a calf injury throughout the postseason before finally succumbing and sitting out Cleveland’s final two games against the Celtics.
Now entering his eighth season, Mitchell has learned what works and what doesn’t. He pays more attention to nutrition, employing a full-time chef who travels with him. He waited longer than usual before starting his offseason conditioning program, giving his body more time to recover.
“I’m not 22 anymore,” he said. “But I’m not 33.”
The Cavs are running it back this season with the same roster, but a new coach in Kenny Atkinson, hired to replace JB Bickerstaff. It’s early days but Mitchell has already linked up with Atkinson, who has made it to visit his best player this summer.
That is, after he finished texting him in the middle of the night of the Olympics. Atkinson was an assistant in the national team of France but that did not prevent him from touching base with Mitchell and the rest of the players from Cleveland.
“It’s like 4 a.m. and he’s texting me like sliding out of screens and back screens and different actions and different things,” Mitchell said, smiling. “So, I can’t complain when you have a coach that does that for sure. So for him to do that, I think it shows how much he cares, the passion behind it.”
