Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell responded to a troll who clowned Georges Niang’s basketball camp.
this poor kid had to attend George Niang’s basketball camp 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/hU5llXHhj1
— HQ (@Cleve1andHQ) July 25, 2024
Chill out…
— Donovan Mitchell (@spidadmitchell) July 26, 2024
Mitchell and Niang were teammates in the NBA before the latter joined the Cavaliers on a three-year deal in the 2023 offseason. The pair played alongside each other on the Utah Jazz for several seasons and helped the team reach the second round of the playoffs during that span.
Niang enjoyed arguably the best season of his pro career so far in his maiden season as a member of the Cavaliers. He served as a productive complementary player for Cleveland.
The 31-year-old didn’t miss one of the Cavaliers’ 82 contests during the 2023-24 regular season and averaged a career-high 9.4 points per game on 37.6 percent shooting from deep to go along with 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists per contest.
Granted, Niang did see his production take a major dip in the 2024 NBA Playoffs compared to the regular season. He averaged just 2.8 points per game across 10 playoff games with the Cavaliers and had a really hard time scoring the ball with any semblance of efficiency, considering he shot just 22.0 percent from the floor and 13.0 percent from deep in his first playoff stint with the Cavaliers.
He didn’t score more than seven points in any one of the playoff games he appeared in for Cleveland. Niang finished with seven points on 3-of-8 shooting from the floor and 1-of-2 from 3-point range in the Cavaliers’ blowout loss to the Orlando Magic in Game 3 of the team’s first-round series.
Cleveland’s time in the 2024 NBA Playoffs came to an end at the hands of the eventual NBA champions in the Boston Celtics. The Cavaliers lost the second-round series in a gentleman’s sweep, with Cleveland’s lone win of the series coming in Game 2 in Boston.
It’s hard not to give Mitchell credit for sticking up for his teammate, and hopefully he and Niang will be teammates together on the Cavaliers for a very long time now that Mitchell recently inked a three-year contract extension with Cleveland.
