100%<\/a>\u2019 plans on returning to Cleveland.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mitchell\u2019s player option isn\u2019t until next season. The Cavs can extend Mitchell long-term this summer and run no risk of losing him unless he demands a trade. President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman suggested that no such trade request is on the horizon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I can tell you is Donovan has been steadfast in how much he loves it here,\u201d said Altman. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been any question of will he be here or does he want to be here; I think the bigger question, is the one that\u2019s been answered, is does he want to be here and does he want to be here long term, and I think he\u2019s answered that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchel has led the Cavs to the playoffs in four consecutive seasons and has been on multiple All-NBA teams since arriving in Cleveland. There are valid concerns about his viability as a No. 1 option on a title team \u2014 but Altman isn\u2019t openly sharing any of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Altman replied when asked if Mitchell can be the best player on a championship team. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to keep pouring into that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Altman also reinforced his belief in Harden, stating that the Cavs didn\u2019t trade for \u2018MVP Harden\u2019 but rather a complementary player who can stabilize them moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe helped regalvanize the group; we were kinda shaky there\u2026 when he came on board, he gave us a real belief and swagger,\u201d said Koby Altman. \u201cWe traded for him and shot out of the gate 5-0, with some real inspiring confidence; we\u2019re not in the Conference Finals without James.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan, for now, appears to be having both guards back with a full offseason and training camp together to figure things out. That might frustrate some fans, but it falls in line with the patient approach that Altman has taken in previous years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Cavaliers seem to have every intention of bringing back James Harden and Donovan Mitchell this summer.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[852,8174,13054,6418,293445,355,24896,110134,99,2970],"class_list":["post-672700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-james-harden","tag-koby-altman","tag-nba","tag-oh","tag-player-option","tag-sports","tag-toronto-raptors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}