After sending Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves in July, the Jazz recently traded star Donovan Mitchell to the Cavaliers for Collin Sexton, Lauri Markkanen, Ochai Agbaji, three first-round picks and a two-year first-rounder swap. Among them, Sexton joined the Jazz on a 4-year, 72M contract on a sign-and-trade basis.
Offense and defense complement each other, complement each other MitchellA match made in heaven with knights?
Statistically, Mitchell and the Cavaliers should be considered complementary combinations.
Mitchell is an offense-over-defense player who, excluding rookie years, finished in the top 15 in points per game for the other four seasons of his career, and is moving forward year following year. On the defensive side, Mitchell is showing a downward trend year by year. According to the NBA’s official website, his DRtg has been rising every year, from 101.5 in the rookie year to 111.7 last season.
The Cavaliers are a team that is heavy on defense and light on offense. The Cavaliers’ ORtg 111.0 last season ranked 20th in the league, and their DRtg 108.9 was among the top five in the league.
From the data on both ends of the offense and defense, Mitchell can not only inject offensive firepower for the Cavaliers, but also provide cover for Mitchell due to the Cavaliers’ own strengths on the defensive end, especially the two starting Cavaliers Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley have good defensive capabilities. .
The lack of ball possession was a major problem for the Cavaliers’ offense last season, and two point guards, Sexton and Ricky Rubio, were reimbursed early due to injuries one following another, making the Cavaliers more and more dependent on Darius Garland. In 2020-21, the Cavaliers scored 3.4 fewer points per 100 possessions when Garland was off the court, a number that jumped to 10.6 last season. The addition of Mitchell will help to improve this weakness, especially for the type of offense that requires the ball such as singles or P&R, and the efficiency should be expected to improve.
Last season, the Cavaliers performed singles 6.1% of the time, ranking in the middle of the league, and singles are Mitchell’s strength. Last season, his singles efficiency was better than more than 80% of the league’s players. In addition, when the Cavaliers performed the P&R Ball Handler last season, they scored an average of 0.86 points per wave, ranking ninth in the league in efficiency. Mitchell also happens to be a leader in the pick-and-roll, and the pick-and-roll ball attack accounted for almost half of his offensive pattern last season. , scored an average of 1.03 points per wave, which is better than nearly 90% of the league’s players.
Perhaps the biggest question for the Cavaliers and Mitchell is whether Mitchell can show star value in the playoffs. Perhaps it was because the main force was relatively young and lacked experience in major competitions. The final quarter was always a hurdle for the Cavaliers. They competed for the playoffs for the eighth seed in the playoffs last season. After the first three quarters, the Cavaliers and the Eagles were tied. In the fourth quarter, the team shot only 33.3 percent from the field and lost to the Eagles.
In the past two playoffs, Mitchell’s shooting percentage in the fourth quarter was less than 40%, and his performance was also not stable. It may not be difficult for the Cavaliers to advance to the playoffs in the new season, but it remains to be seen whether Mitchell can get rid of his soft hand at critical moments and lead the team to go further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox91Sz8JIzI
“Stud” introduces Mitchell Is the Cavaliers losing or winning?
In this transaction, the Cavaliers, in addition to the three first-round picks on the books, plus the two-year first-round pick exchange rights and the rookie Agbaji, who was selected with the 14th overall pick in the first round this year, are equivalent to paying six first-round picks to get Mitchell. , the price seems to be huge, and some people even use “stud” to describe it. But overall, this deal should be quite worth it for the Cavaliers.
He won 44 wins in the regular season last season, which is a new high since LeBron James transferred to the team in 2018. After six years of drafting, trading and training, he has gradually established the prototype of the team with Garland, Allen and Mobley as the core. All signs show that the efforts of the knights are gradually bearing fruit, and they are ready to move to the next stage.
The playoffs are a battlefield dominated by stars. The key to determining how far a team can go in the playoffs is how powerful the stars are. But the Cavaliers belong to a small market team and are not the first choice for stars to join. In the past ten years, the Cavaliers have only caught the big fish of LeBron from the free market.
But that is the result of the interaction of the weather, the geographical position, and the people. If it were not for the geographical relationship, the knights might not be favored by the little emperor. Such a once-in-a-century opportunity doesn’t happen often, which is why the Cavaliers don’t hesitate to take the trigger when they get the chance to acquire Mitchell, a three-time All-Star.
Furthermore, in the trade case, the Cavaliers not only acquired Mitchell, but also completed it while keeping all the core players, even the important green leaf Isaac Okoro did not move, and also solved Sexton’s contract renewal deadlock and cleared Lauri Markkanen. It can be said that it kills three birds with one stone.
