Did the Donovan Mitchell trade potentially change the NBA?

Did the Cleveland Cavaliers change the NBA with the Donovan Mitchell trade?

When the Cleveland Cavaliers traded for Donovan Mitchell, there were a lot of people who had a lot of different opinions. People suggested that the Cavs overpaid for Mitchell, while others claimed Mitchell isn’t much of an upgrade over Collin Sexton, and others wondered how the team would be able to manage Mitchell next to Darius Garland.

Well, the Cavs are 7-1 and have won all seven in a row. In fact, the team did most of that with Garland only playing a game and a half, which is a testament to how deep the Cavs really are. The trade has not only worked out for the Cavs but the Utah Jazz as well; Mitchell’s former team. The Jazz is 7-3 and is currently third place in the west thanks in part to former Cavalier Lauri Markkanen.

The Mitchell trade was huge, but was it NBA-changing? A YouTube channel named Sporting Logically dove deep into the idea that Mitchell’s trade to the Cavs was a shakeup of the status quo in the NBA, where smaller markets like Cleveland could become a destination for stars like Mitchell, simply by offering a better situation.

The idea that many have is that the bigger markets pull in the stars, which actually isn’t true. The only sport that holds true is baseball, and that’s simply because they don’t have any logical salary rules, so bigger markets can spend more money.

What the YouTube video doesn’t seem to grasp is that, historically, players leaving for bigger markets but worse situations aren’t all that common.

The Donovan Mitchell trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t change anything

Reggie Miller played his whole career with the Indiana Pacers. LeBron James signed with Cleveland or New York in 2014. DeMar DeRozan twice rejected going home to play for the Los Angeles Lakers. Giannis Antetokounmpo re-signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. Damian Lillard re-signed and demanded to stay in Portland. Tim Duncan famously only ever considered leaving San Antonio for Orlando.

Orlando, of all places.

So no, historically the bigger teams don’t get the big free agents. It’s simply a cheap and lazy theory that most sport talk hosts throw out there every year despite it not being likely. The Lakers signed James, sure, but before that their biggest free agents were a declining Dwight Howard and a bottoming-out Steve Nash.

The New York Knicks’ biggest free agent was Carmelo Anthony but he spent his whole time in New York on his own because no one wanted to go to the dumpster fire that was the Knicks.

The NBA, at least for the last few decades, has always been a league where players have picked situations over city limits. How many major free agents have the Dallas Mavericks gotten? Yeah, the Brooklyn Nets got Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but that was only because they were one of the few teams who could afford both of them and had the team in place around them.

So I do agree with the core concept that mid-markets do better in the NBA than other sports, but I reject the notion the Mitchell trade had anything to do with it. Teams like the Cavs make these types of trades quite often.

Just look at Washington landing Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City landing Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, Toronto getting Kawhi Leonard, C.J. McCollum going to New Orleans, and so many others for proof.

Sure, you’ll have your Anthony Davis to the Lakers every now and then, but they aren’t the norm.