All the Cleveland Cavaliers should be thinking about right now is finishing strong in the regular season and getting ready for the 204 NBA Playoffs. But the thought of Donovan Mitchell’s future with the franchise can’t be entirely avoided. The Cavs star shooting guard has one more year left of guaranteed time with Cleveland, as he has a player option to decide on for the 2025-26 NBA campaign.
Will Donovan Mitchell Sign an Extension With the Cleveland Cavaliers?
Mitchell is eligible to put pen on paper for an extension with the Cavs in the summer, but it’s one thing to be eligible to do so and it’s completely another to convince him to ink a new contract. Rumors are circulating that unless the Cavaliers reach the 2024 NBA Finals, it’s likely that Mitchell will play his final season wiht Cleveland in the 2024-25 campaign when he will be earning $34.848 million.
Via Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report:
The buzz in NBA circles suggests that barring a run to the NBA Finals, Mitchell will decline an extension and look elsewhere, and the Cavaliers are more likely than not to move him well before he can leave outright as a free agent.
Cleveland gave up three first-round picks, two first-round swaps, a future All-Star in Lauri Markkanen, the just-drafted Ochai Agbaji and Collin Sexton for Mitchell. The Cavs can’t let that turn into two or three brief playoff runs, followed by Mitchell walking in free agency for nothing in return.
Mitchell’s option for the 2025-26 season is worth $37.096 million, but it’s not a stretch to think that the former Louisville Cardinals star believes that he’s going to secure a much bigger contract with larger annual pay than that figure if he decides to hit free agency in 2025.
In any case, the Cavs’ main focus should be on bringing a title to The Land for the first time since LeBron James led the squad to the top in 2016.
At the time of this writing, the Cavaliers are fifth in the Eastern Conference standings with a 46-33 record. The Orlando Magic are third with also a 44-33 record but have the tiebreaker advantage of the Cavs. who made it to the NBA Playoffs in the 2022-23 campaign but got eliminated in the first round by the New York Knicks in five games.
Mitchell, who was selected 13th overall in the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets, is averaging 26.4 points per game this season.
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