{"id":97821,"date":"2024-09-26T13:10:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T17:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=97821"},"modified":"2024-09-26T13:10:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T17:10:24","slug":"cavs-first-rate-scorer-donovan-mitchell-far-from-cavalier-la-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/09\/26\/cavs-first-rate-scorer-donovan-mitchell-far-from-cavalier-la-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Rate Scorer Far From Cavalier About LA Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cleveland Cavaliers guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mitchdo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Donovan Mitchell<\/a> has <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/07\/02\/cavs-all-star-donovan-mitchell-agree-3-year-max-contract-extension\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">quieted the rumors<\/a> about him heading to the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brunsja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jalen Brunson<\/a>\u2019s success in the boroughs of New York City has as <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/14\/knicks-longtime-trade-pursuit-donovan-mitchell-cooling-off\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">much to do with that<\/a> as Mitchell\u2019s belief in his Cavs team. Yet, playing in a less glamorous market may have an effect on his star power. Opportunities that may have been present had he played for glamour franchises like Knicks, Boston Celtics, or Los Angeles Lakers don\u2019t seem to be there.<\/p>\n<p>One of his most glaring omissions may have come this summer, as he was left off of Team USA\u2019s Olympic roster. In fact, he may not have even been under consideration, at least not heavily. For a player who just averaged 29.6 points per game on a playoff-bound team, it seems strange though.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps USA Basketball director Grant Hill didn\u2019t think he\u2019d mesh well with the others. At least <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/08\/olympics-grant-hill-jaylen-brown-future-team-usa-eligibility\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">that figured into why<\/a> 2024 NBA Finals MVP, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brownja02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaylen Brown<\/a>, was snubbed. If so, Hill may have turned a blind eye to Mitchell\u2019s playmaking and humility.<\/p>\n<h2>First-Rate Scorer Donovan Mitchell Far From Cavalier About LA Olympics<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, I think Book&#8217;s approach I think should be every hooper&#8217;s approach,\u201d Mitchell tells <em>7PM in Brooklyn<\/em>. \u201cHis \u2018I&#8217;ll do it.\u2019 I respect the h*** out of that because that&#8217;s the same type of time I&#8217;m on.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cI feel like I deserve to be in that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spida reacts to being left off 2028 Olympic Team roster projections and says he\u2019s a top 10-15 player in the league right now.<\/p>\n<p>New episode just dropped, tap in!<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa: <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nDcXZ1fgRd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/nDcXZ1fgRd<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9v7qYTIYf8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/9v7qYTIYf8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 7PM in Brooklyn (@7PMinBrooklyn) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/7PMinBrooklyn\/status\/1838579149935419704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 24, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Phoenix Suns guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bookede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Booker<\/a>, highly respected among his peers, didn\u2019t just offer lip service when he said \u201cI\u2019ll do it\u201d either.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I\u2019ll do it <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/77PBGNEQ0W\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/77PBGNEQ0W<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Book (@DevinBook) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DevinBook\/status\/1701736480362934458?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Throughout the 2024 Olympics, he proved that he was willing to do whatever was asked of him. A player who is the face of his franchise <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/11\/steve-kerr-names-surprising-player-as-unsung-team-usa-mvp\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">happily went into the shadows<\/a>, just to secure his team a win.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell alluding to this tweet from last year offers an interesting perspective. Hill may have been too quick to dismiss more talented, and probably more deserving, players out of fear they wouldn\u2019t be able to accept a role. Nonetheless, what\u2019s over and done with can\u2019t be changed, and he\u2019s still hoping to make the cut for the LA Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s bothering him is that of the many 2028 roster predictions, he wasn\u2019t on the list.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m not going to lie. I saw myself not in a lot of roster predictions,\u201d Mitchell admits. \u201cIt&#8217;s b*******. But it is what it is. At the end of the day. If that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s what people feel like I just got to do more. That&#8217;s kind of been my whole mindset, but I feel like I deserve to be right in that [conversation]&#8230;\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Olympic Motivation<\/h3>\n<p>Mitchell, a five-time All-Star after seven NBA seasons, definitely belongs in the Olympic conversation. However, there\u2019s a difference between being worthy of consideration and being too good to pass up. That\u2019s the next step that the Louisville product is looking to take.<\/p>\n<p>To him, the solution is about adding to his accolades. Yet, the successes he needs to have are in the playoffs, not just the regular season. To that point, Mitchell has played in 54 postseason games in his career. The problem is that he\u2019s never made it to the Conference Finals or beyond. In fact, he\u2019s been bounced out of the first round more than he\u2019s advanced to the second round.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026In my first year in Cleveland, I\u2019m an All-Star starter, All-NBA&#8230;,\u201d Mitchell muses. \u201cSo, I feel like that\u2019s part of it, but obviously you got to win. Realistically, I look at myself as one of the top 10-15 players in the league, but I haven\u2019t made it to a Conference Finals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, in order for me to make the jump, I can\u2019t sit here and get mad\u2026 this is an accolades-based world we live in&#8230;,\u201d he continues exasperatedly. \u201cIt is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old is using this as motivation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, until that happens I got to continue to plug and plug,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m not shocked when I see it. It\u2019s more like, \u2018Alright bet!\u2019\u2026 It&#8217;s more of a thank you to me, like every year I got something I gotta go get. There\u2019s never a complacency.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>It Is What It Is<\/h3>\n<p>One could argue that Mitchell shouldn\u2019t need the pressure of the Olympics to make him want to pursue a championship more.<\/p>\n<p>Despite several players, analysts, and media outlets decrying \u2018ring culture,\u2019 a team\u2019s primary pursuit at every level of basketball is winning a trophy. Whether that\u2019s the high school playoffs, NCAA playoffs, NBA playoffs, or an offhand tournament, teams enter it with the desire to win it all. At the end of the day, rings matter so much because championships are the goal.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, great players always find a way to get more out of themselves. If the thought of being an Olympic snub four years from now is what gets him over the hump, so be it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell has quieted the rumors about him heading to the New York Knicks. Frankly, Jalen Brunson\u2019s success in the boroughs of New York City has as much to do with that as Mitchell\u2019s belief in his Cavs team. Yet, playing in a less glamorous market may have an effect on his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":97879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1608,62,3,28,36],"tags":[352,900,1052,2081],"class_list":["post-97821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cavaliers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-suns","category-podcasts","tag-devin-booker","tag-donovan-mitchell","tag-olympics","tag-team-usa"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}