PHILADELPHIA — Less than five weeks since being acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in a stunning blockbuster of a trade to cap a frenetic offseason in the NBA, Donovan Mitchell made his debut for the Cavaliers Wednesday in Cleveland’s preseason opener.
And, after finishing with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting, including 3-for-4 from 3-point range, to go with five assists in 19 minutes in a 113-112 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center, Mitchell admitted the idea of putting on a different jersey than the Utah Jazz one he wore the first five years of his career will take some getting used to.
“One hundred percent,” Mitchell said with a smile, when asked if it felt weird wearing a different jersey for the first time. “It just didn’t feel real … it still didn’t hit me yet.”
Mitchell said he spent Monday looking out the window of the Four Seasons high above downtown Philadelphia, and that it was only then that it really sunk in that he was about to be officially playing for another team for the first time.
“Today, I just kind of sat there and had one of those moments where you sit there and look out and see everything and it’s like, ‘Wow. It’s really here’,” he said.
“Then once you get on the court, basketball is basketball. But all the little things, it’s definitely weird. A little different. But I’m excited. It’s going the way I thought it would, in a good way.”
Mitchell’s arrival in Cleveland to augment a burgeoning young core featuring All-Stars Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen and runner up for last season’s Rookie of the Year award in Evan Mobley has the Cavaliers hoping this season will mark an uptick in fortunes to places the franchise hasn’t seen in decades when LeBron James wasn’t in town.
The last time Cleveland made the playoffs without James? The 1997-98 season. The last time the Cavaliers won a playoff series without him? Thirty seasons ago, in the 1992-93 campaign, when Cleveland was swept by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in four games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
But to do those things — particularly in what is arguably the deepest version of the Eastern Conference the NBA has seen in a generation or more — Cleveland will first need to get its two ball-dominant guards, Mitchell and Garland, on the same page.
Before Wednesday night’s game, Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff laid out the criteria that will show that process is taking hold, saying the focus was on avoiding playing…
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