CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell remembers the conversation as if it happened yesterday. And he recalls how little attention he paid to it at the time.
“Remember this moment,” Mike Conley Jr. once told Mitchell when the two were teammates on the Utah Jazz. “These kind of teams don’t come around very often. This doesn’t normally happen in the NBA. So, appreciate it.”
Conley was speaking to Mitchell in a team meeting during the 2020-21 season, when the Jazz were a legitimate title contender. They went on to post the best regular-season record in the league that season. But, as Conley’s words implied, nothing is promised: That Jazz team would get snakebit by injuries and lose in the second round to the LA Clippers.
As he faced his former team Monday night with his current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Mitchell is no longer the youngster in the locker room. And Cleveland, like that 2021 Utah team, has the best record in the NBA at 26-4. This time, Conley’s words hit deeper for the now-28-year-old.
“What I’ve learned is that this isn’t forever. We are not invincible. You have to appreciate this, because this doesn’t come around too often,” Mitchell told The Athletic over the weekend. “When Mike was saying that, it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate it then, but when you’re as young as I was then, you don’t know what you don’t know.
“I find myself telling the guys in this locker room the same stuff that Mike and Joe (Ingles) and Ricky (Rubio) used to tell me. What we have this season? This isn’t always the NBA. Not every locker room is like this.”
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Over his career, Mitchell has been the happy-go-lucky rookie that everyone seems to love. He’s been a champion for social justice with words that weren’t always received warmly. He’s been accused of shooting the ball too much and sat at the center of an oft-discussed dispute with ex-Jazz teammate Rudy Gobert. He’s been the target of near-constant trade rumors and the centerpiece of a blockbuster trade. He’s won a dunk contest, made the All-Star team five times and an All-NBA team.
With this Cavs team, however, Mitchell is finding something that had previously escaped him, what he calls “a sense of peace.”
“For years, everyone has talked about if I like Rudy, or talked about me going to the New York Knicks or the Miami Heat,” he said. “So, it’s great to finally have that sense of peace.”
He’s in a locker room that seems to universally like each other. He’s surrounded himself with friends and family. And most importantly for him and the Cavaliers, Mitchell is playing some of the best basketball of his career.
“Ideally, if I can paint a picture, I would win a championship at some point over the next five years,” he said. “It’s hard to win championships. It’s hard to win in this league. Despite public opinion, I love being in Cleveland and I want to win a title with this group.”
Getting to this point hasn’t been easy for Mitchell, which is why this time he wants to actually enjoy the moment. He was the best player on that Jazz team in 2021, but he was far from the most experienced guy on the roster. Truth be told, he was far from the most mature player on that team.
In most cases, humans mature naturally over four years simply through life experience. So, leading an upstart Cleveland team in 2024 is much different than it was for Mitchell in 2021.
“I think the way he communicates is something that’s been very welcomed,” first-year Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “He has an attention to detail and the way he reaches out and is constantly texting and communicating has been terrific. He’s embraced a leadership role here.”
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As the Cavaliers took consecutive games against the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers over the weekend, Mitchell’s teammates ribbed him in the locker room for his decrease in dunking this season. When Mitchell entered the league out of Louisville, he played above the rim. On Friday night, he settled for a basic two-handed dunk on a breakaway. When told by reporters and his teammates that that dunk would have been a windmill a few years ago, Mitchell laughed and pointed out that he’s dunked in three consecutive games.
It was fun banter, but it serves as a metaphor for Mitchell, and the circle of basketball life in general. Mitchell isn’t the same athlete at 28 that he was at 22. Not many are. It’s one of the many reasons Mitchell knows that he and the Cavaliers have to take advantage of the opportunity that’s presenting itself.
“You see the playoff losses, and it’s like, ‘OK, there is a window,” he said.
Mitchell sees real similarities between this Cleveland team and that Jazz squad that raced to the top of the league. Naysayers claim Mitchell and Darius Garland are too small a backcourt to win a title, much as they did when Mitchell played alongside Conley in Utah. That Jazz team employed dynamic ball movement and a sophisticated offensive system that emphasized 3-point shooting. This Cleveland team does the same.
That Jazz team and this Cleveland team had a monster lob threat and rim protector in the middle in Gobert and Jarrett Allen, respectively. That Jazz team and this Cleveland team both took the NBA by surprise with their regular-season success.
There is a difference. This Cleveland team has Evan Mobley and that Jazz team didn’t. And Mobley is the kind of versatile two-way 7-footer who can make an outsized impact come playoff time.
“It’s different because we have two (big men) back there,” Mitchell said. “It’s different because our perimeter defense has taken a step. But there are some very similar comparisons that are easy to look at and be like, OK, I can see that. There are definitely a lot of similarities.”
Though Mitchell’s minutes and raw points production are down, if you watch him for an extended period, it’s obvious Mitchell is playing at an All-NBA level. He’s defending as well as he ever has as a pro, mainly because his decreased offensive usage is allowing him to focus more on defense. He’s playing with more pace while shooting 40 percent from 3-point range for the first time in his career. He’s no longer forcing himself on games, which has been a major weakness in the past. He’s trying harder than ever to empower teammates, mainly Mobley.
Mitchell is playing 31.6 minutes a night, by far the lowest of his career. It remains to be seen how patient he will be in a playoff setting. But one of the reasons the Cavaliers have been so good this season is because Mitchell has embraced a smaller workload. And the irony of that is he’s become a better all-around player because of it.
“Going this way, playing less minutes, that’s been the most different for me,” Mitchell said. “Winning cures everything and that is the most important thing. I had to get used to knowing that I can’t take that BS shot. But there is so much talent on this team, and it’s easy to recognize that. I think that the way the veterans were on me in Utah, the way they groomed me, that’s the same thing that I’m trying to do to these guys.”
Mitchell doesn’t regret his time in Utah, or his relationship with Gobert, the good and the bad. Their breakup was unfortunate because they were so compatible with one another as players. Gobert wasn’t a scorer; Mitchell scored for both of them. Mitchell wasn’t the greatest defender in the world; Gobert was, in fact, the greatest defender in the world. Gobert was the best screener in the NBA; one of Mitchell’s main strengths is his ability to navigate screens off the dribble and walk into 3-point looks.
They both wanted to win, but went about winning in differing ways. And both would tell you in honest moments that they didn’t handle themselves in the best way when it came to their differences off the floor.
“I think we both would say that we weren’t our most mature selves,” Mitchell said. “But, it’s tough, because you’re never the most mature you are going to be when you are 21 or 22. The funny thing is that we were our best after the COVID thing. I think that’s when we got everything on the table and we were able to go and hoop.
“I would do it all again if I could. I’m appreciative of that, because it allowed me to become this player and this person.”
(Top photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
