The New York Knicks failed in their pursuit of Donovan Mitchell. They refused to meet Danny Ainge’s demands, so the Cleveland Cavaliers swooped in and acquired his services for a very decent package.
Mitchell’s ties to the Knicks ran deep, and he was their primary target for months. Some even speculated that the Utah Jazz refused to trade him to his hometown team out of pure spite, a report that has been denied multiple times.
Even the Louisville product admitted that he would’ve welcomed a trade back home with open arms. Still, Mitchell claims he’s happy to be a part of an exciting young group with the Cavaliers.
NBA News: Donovan Mitchell Says It Would’ve Been Nice To Join The Knicks
“Very close, I won’t say more than that, but I know more than most, definitely very close,” Mitchell said in his introductory press conference. “Who doesn’t want to be home, next to their mom? I haven’t lived at home since I was in the eighth grade and I went to boarding school, so it would have been nice.”
“It didn’t happen, God’s got a plan for everything and like I said, when I found out that I was traded here (Cleveland Cavaliers), I was very excited with the group we have, with the talent we have,” Mitchell added. “We are young, and we have a lot of talent here that we can build upon. I was really excited, but it was close to happen.”
Mitchell Never Actually Asked To Be Traded To New York
Even so, not everybody’s buying his words. NBA insider Evan Cohen, for one, believes Mitchell never truly intended to play for an ever-struggling Knicks franchise. He just said all that not to become a villain in his own city:
“At no point did he say he didn’t want to play for the Knicks,” Cohen said. “Because he didn’t want to be in bad standing with his hometown fans. But at no point, did he ever say ‘I want to be with the Knicks’. He said nothing. From a basketball perspective, I think Donovan Mitchell is on the team he’d rather be on in comparison to the New York Knicks.”
At the end of the day, it seems like we’ll never know for sure. Mitchell is just 26 years old, so there’s still a big chance the Knicks will sign him to a massively overpaid contract once he’s way past his prime and he finally plays for his hometown team.
