Donovan Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers are currently in the midst of what figures to be a highly important offseason as for the future direction of the franchise. Mitchell surprised many by resigning with the Cavs earlier this offseason after some fans expected him to depart for greener pastures, and now Cleveland is looking to stay competitive in an Eastern Conference that got a good bit more talented this offseason.
Of course, even on its best day, the Eastern Conference as a whole probably can’t hold a candle to the Western Conference, where there are between six and eight teams with legitimate championship aspirations entering next season, depending on who you ask. While Mitchell obviously believes his Cavs are destined to reach the NBA Finals next season (as would any star player about their team when asked), he recently dropped a surprising prediction for who he believes will represent the West on the game’s biggest stage.
“I would say it’s probably gonna be Minnesota or OKC. I think Minnesota, they’re some dogs. I think they figured it out too about themselves,” said Mitchell, via Million Dollaz Worth Of Game on YouTube. “They made some trades and made some different acquisitions and all that, but they figured it out… OKC adding Alex Caruso, I don’t think people really understand what that does for that lineup. You’ve already got [Cason] Wallace over there, you’ve got Lu Dort, Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander]’s not a bad defender himself. You add Alex Caruso to that lineup.”
Indeed, both the Timberwolves and Thunder got better this offseason after excellent campaigns a year ago and figure to be at or near the top of the Western Conference pecking order next season.
What is the Cavs’ ceiling?
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Most pundits seem to project the Cavs at the current moment as being somewhere in the third tier of Eastern Conference teams, somewhere below the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics as well as the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks, both of whom improved exponentially, at least on paper, this offseason. Others might throw in the Milwaukee Bucks as being definitively better than Cleveland, although it should be noted that the Cavs made it further than them in the playoffs a year ago.
Outside of resigning Mitchell and Jarrett Allen, the Cavs didn’t do a whole lot in terms of actually improving the roster this offseason, so it’s unclear what steps the team will be able to take in order to stay competitive with those upper echelon teams; however, Mitchells’ resigning gives the franchise a feeling of stability they haven’t had in quite a while.
In any case, the schedule for 2024-25 will come out later this month.