Cavs-Lakers face-off comes with a Donovan Mitchell intrigue

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey – The Los Angeles Lakers will size up one of their top summer trade targets when the Cleveland Cavaliers visit them on Saturday (Sunday Manila time) as the race to the playoffs tightens up. 

The trade rumors about Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell continue to run in the rumor mill as he remained non-committal on an extension this summer. 

"I got a lot of things to focus on outside of that right now," Mitchell told reporters on March 30. "So, I’ll handle that when it comes."

Two days earlier, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert expressed confidence Mitchell would be a Cavalier for a long time.

“We’ve been talking to him, sure, for the last couple of years about extending this contract,” Gilbert told The Associated Press on March 28. “We think he will extend. I think if you listen to him talk, he loves the city.

He loves the situation in Cleveland because our players are very young and we’re just kind of putting the core together that he’s clearly the biggest part of.”

It turns out Gilbert and the Cavaliers are treading on thin ice. 

Mitchell is widely believed to leave Cleveland unless they rule the Eastern Conference this season.

"The buzz in NBA circles suggests that barring a run to the NBA Finals, Mitchell will decline an extension and look elsewhere, and the Cavaliers are more likely than not to move him well before he can leave outright as a free agent," Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus reported on April 5.

The Cavaliers’ odds to win the Eastern Conference increased after their last season tormentor New York Knicks lost their three-time All-Star forward Julius Randle to a season-ending shoulder injury. 

The Cavaliers have jumped to the fourth-best odds in the Eastern Conference at +1200 in FanDuel, one of the best sportsbooks in Ohio according to OH Betting. The league-leading Boston Celtics are the odds-on favorites to rule the East at +140 followed by the Milwaukee Bucks (+310) and the Philadelphia 76ers (+950). 

If the Cavaliers fall short once again, Mitchell “is all but certain to decline his $37.1 million player option for the 2025-26 season to explore unrestricted free agency next July,” according to Pincus. 

The Lakers had internal discussions about trading for Mitchell or Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young should they become available this summer, according to an ESPN report in January. 

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Alder Almo is a former senior sportswriter for Philstar.com and NBA.com Philippines. He is now based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and writes for the New York-based website Heavy.com.