NBA insider Brian Windhorst of ESPN boldly claimed that Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell’s influence on the Cavs is perhaps greater than LeBron James’ influence on the Los Angeles Lakers.
"What Donovan has with the Cavs is what LeBron has with the Lakers, in fact it might even be stronger," – @WindhorstESPN on Donovan Mitchell's level of influence with the Cavs. pic.twitter.com/1K60Huuy5K
— ESPN Cleveland (@ESPNCleveland) May 29, 2024
Ever since the Cavaliers’ season came to an end in the second round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, Mitchell’s name has been swirling around in trade rumors, and former Miami Heat big man Udonis Haslem recently called cap on the notion that the shooting guard is happy in Cleveland.
“When you talk about Cleveland, I don’t want no parts of that until I understand what Donovan Mitchell gon’ do,” Haslem said regarding Mitchell’s future with the Cavaliers. “He say he happy there, but he ain’t sign that extension. So, I’m calling cap. If you happy, sign the extension, so we as a front office can say, ‘Hey, we got Donovan Mitchell locked in. This is what we gon’ look like the next couple years. This is the plan we trying to put together to win a championship.’
“You can use that in free agency. But, if Donovan Mitchell ain’t signing that extension, you can’t go to nobody talking about, ‘Oh, in two, three years, this is what the team gon’ look like. This is what we want to do.’”
Upon first thought, the report from Windhorst might come off as surprising and far-fetched. After all, James has accomplished so much more both individually and collectively than Mitchell has in the NBA.
James is a four-time NBA champion and four-time league MVP, while Mitchell has yet to win a single title or MVP award since joining the league ahead for the 2017-18 season.
While Mitchell lacks NBA accomplishments when comparing his accolades to those of James, he arguably makes up for that with his youth.
Mitchell projects to have a lot more NBA basketball left in the tank than James does. The former has yet to turn 28 years old and just completed his seventh season in the league.
James, on the other hand, is the oldest active player in the NBA today at 39 years old and will turn 40 in December.
On top of the age discrepancy being in Mitchell’s favor, he also led the Cavaliers deeper into the 2024 NBA Playoffs than James did for the Lakers. The Lakers lost to the Denver Nuggets in five games in the first round of the playoffs, while Mitchell helped lead the Cavaliers to their first playoff series victory of the decade, as Cleveland eliminated the Orlando Magic in seven games in the opening round.
When accounting for Mitchell’s youth and the fact that he and the Cavaliers are fresh off an appearance in the second round of the playoffs, some might understand why he reportedly may have more influence with his team than James does with the Lakers at this juncture.
