The Mitchell Trade

 If you are one of my 12 readers (thanks btw) you know that I don’t like this deal, so let’s dispense with all that.  No breakdown, no rants, just a detailed look at what this move directly implies and if it realistically accomplishes its goals.

This type of trade where the bulk of your assets are swapped for a single player, declares that you believe the team constructed now is a finals contender.  Anything else is a huge disappointment, because there is no next move to make, no way to fix a situation that isn’t working out.  You can make marginal decisions, which veteran FA for a piece of the MLE or the minimum you chase first, but you are constrained to the core as it is.  This is most clearly seen by looking at the Lakers and Westbrook.  The Lakers gave up less in value to land Wesbrook than the Mitchell deal, but proportional to their assets it is similar.  The 22nd pick, a handful of 2nds and three rotation players left them with THT and the slow crawl of future picks being available for trade every other season.  That is why they are loath to include two future selections to move Westbrook, not because that inhibits their team in 7 years, but because if the next trade isn’t perfect that is it.  They have one shot left and they have to thread the needle perfectly.  

If your reaction to this deal is ‘the Cavs are a top 4 team in the East now’ then your grade should be an F.  Anything less than ‘title contenders the next two seasons’ is a failure for such a package.  

Mitchell’s basic profile:  A shoot first, extremely high volume, limited passing, no defense, shooting guard.  How many title winners have this type of guard as their best, second best, or third best player on the roster? Or to put it more bluntly, how many years do we have to go back to find such a player?

We can knock off the Warriors (all their titles), the Lakers (all of their titles since they signed Shaq), the Cavs (Irving was both a better passer and better defender than Mitchell), the Raptors, the Heat, the Spurs, the Celtics.  There are really only two candidates:  Jason Terry on the Mavs title winner, and Rip Hamilton with Detroit.  One is a stretch- Terry was a useful player, but not clearly more valuable than either of Marion or Kidd for the 3rd slot.  Rip’s defense is hard to value ex post, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as Mitchell’s has been the past three playoff runs.  However let’s push that argument to the side- we have functionally 1 example in the last 19 seasons that is a reasonable proxy for Mitchell on a title winner.  

How about the runner up?  Just taking finals losers as a proxy for the 2nd best team (definitely not always the case).  I see Devin Booker, possibly a 30 year old Tony Parker whose defense had declined and James Harden, and that looks pretty much like it until we get back to Rip Hamilton again in their finals loss.  

This should not come as a surprise to anyone, the league has been dominated by 2-way forwards with guard skills for years now, and dominant big men.  The greatest shooter to date has muddied the water here, but no one is putting Mitchell on Curry’s level here and his defense has also been better than Mitchell’s.  

The primary issue is that with 4 playoff rounds to get through you have to avoid running into any team who can turn your weakness into a fatal flaw.  Ensemble teams feel this most acutely.  The Hawks won a lot of games with good FC defense, shooting and ball movement.  They won 3 playoff series over 2 seasons, and they won zero playoff games in two tries against the Cavs.  For the team with the 2nd best record and 4th best point differential to get swept out of the playoffs with a -14.3 net rating should be pretty shocking.  On the other hand if you have no one to defend prime Lebron 1 on 1 then your team is going to bleed badly at every turn.  The Raptors learned the same lesson, taking 2 wins in 14 playoff games against the Cavs with   teams that won 56, 51 and 59 games with net ratings of +4.8, +4.4 and +7.9, Demar Derozan is not a bad analog for Mitchell either, and Lowry/Derozan against Garland Mitchell should definitely send chills up Cavs fans spines.  Two and twelve before Lebron leaves the East, they trade for Kawhi and win a title. 

Mitchell is going to make things really difficult in the playoffs for the Cavs.  CJ McCollum made the playoffs difficult for the Blazers, Devin Booker has only been to the playoffs twice.  The Suns made a great run to the finals and went up 2-0, and they managed to force Giannis to display his greatness.  Unfortunately he did, and after game 1 where he scored 20 on 11 FGAs and 12 FTAs he didn’t take less than 19 FGAs or 8 FTAs the rest of the way, averaging 38/12.5/5 over the next 5 games.  It turns out that stopping a 7’ MVP when you built your team around two guards is pretty tough*.  

It also turns out that Giannis is currently 27 and still plays in the East.  

Last season the Heat signed PJ Tucker specifically to guard the ball handling forwards in the East and still lost to the Celtics with Tatum and Brown going for 25/8/5 and 24/7/3 with both breaking 60% TS for the series.  

Tatum and Brown also still play in the East and are 24 and 26 this season.  

You need a ton of help around your guards to even hope to get into the situation where you lose to a strong forward in the playoffs.  We have Mobley and Allen!  Great.  Miami had a 105.4 Drtg with Bam and Tucker on the court last season, and Tucker was benched in game 7, playing only 17 mins, as they lost the series.  The Suns had the #3 ranked Defense last season, with Bridges and Crowder next to Ayton.  The Raptors had the 5th ranked defense in their final sweep by Lebron’s Cavs.

Deep playoff matchups become more and more about exploiting weaknesses, and skilled forwards are the most capable players of exploiting on offense, while 2 way forwards are the most skilled at covering up defensive weaknesses as well.  Giannis, Lebron Durant won’t just play forward but can masquerade as point guards, shooting guards, wings and Centers as the need arises.  Tatum isn’t there all the way on offense, but is 95% of the way there defensively, Luka is all the way there on offense and is improving on defense, and then there is Scottie Barnes, Paolo and Zion at varying stages of their careers with varying strengths and weaknesses.  

So what does this trade actually do for the Cavs in the East?  It pushes them against the Hawks, Bulls, the Heat and possibly the 76ers, but opens up a huge hole against the Nets, Bucks, Celtics and Raptors.  Toronto are not a threat in this manner until/unless Barnes takes a leap but the Nets, Bucks and Celtics represent the past two Eastern Conference champs, and the strongest contender against the Bucks in their title run.  

I cannot give any other verdict other than a failure for this deal.  The Cavs could well luck out and be the 04 Pistons, or have Mobley take enormous strides very early in his career, but those are low percentage outcomes.  There will of course be fans who think that a playoff team is a fine outcome and that this level of scrutiny is too harsh.  To that I say simply that this level of commitment cannot be squared with playoff aspirations, control of every draft pick they can give away is gone, plus two swaps, plus this past years pick, the asset they got for Nance, and their 2018 top 10 selection and any notable amount of cap space they might have cracked open to improve their team this offseason.  

*The Suns playoff run was marred by injuries and curious events last season, but they couldn’t stop Brandon Ingram (27/6/6) or Luka Doncic (33/10/7) either.