When Kenny Atkinson sat down for lunch with Donovan Mitchell at the Four Seasons Westlake Village just outside of Los Angeles in late June, his goal was clear: instill enough trust and belief in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ franchise player that Mitchell would be compelled to sign a new contract rather than risk free agency.
The 57-year-old Atkinson had just recently signed his contract with the Cavaliers, and the next item on the Cavs’ agenda was to secure the team’s future. But in this NBA era where technology rules, with iPads on every coach’s bench and PowerPoint presentations a regular part of the routine, this essential X’s and O’s session was as low-tech as it gets.
“We were going over (Atkinson’s vision) with f—ing salt and pepper on the little place mat,” Mitchell previously told The Athletic. “This man may be here and place it there. Naturally, what piqued my interest was the fact that we were having this type of debate during an ordinary lunch. We are honestly trying to figure it all out, and we are saying, ‘All right, we can plug this person here, and where can we put this guy?’ Evan (Mobley) comes here with the rifle action. He puts up this (activity), and you may slip. “We are just going over everything.”
For more than an hour, none of the internal turmoil that had preceded Atkinson’s arrival—and that led to the sacking of head coach J.B. Bickerstaff after the Cavs Falling to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals was almost as important as the question of whether these two men would get along in this high-level basketball talk. After all of the turmoil in Cleveland last season — from the front office’s concerns about Mitchell playing too much to the well-known doubts about Bickerstaff in the locker room, big man Jarrett Allen’s longer-than-expected recovery from a rib injury in the play
Atkinson, the former Brooklyn Nets head coach who had spent the previous four seasons as a Golden State assistant, did not know Mitchell well. They met briefly in 2017, when Mitchell worked out for Brooklyn prior to the draft during Atkinson’s tenure there, but they were otherwise complete strangers.
Not for long, however.
“I wanted it to be more casual than a chalkboard session,” Atkinson told The Athletic about his meeting strategy. “I wanted to hear his ideas on how we’d play and about the team. I said, ‘Let’s go over the roster and tell me about each player.’ And it was great. It was like speaking to a coach. He was quite knowledgeable.
offs, former All-Star guard Darius Garland possibly wanting to be traded, and young Evan Mobley’s regression — this was their opportunity to chart a new, healthier path forward. But it would have to begin with Atkinson and Mitchell.
“He gave me the lowdown on every guy, and that sparked my interest.” Like, yeah, I’ve got the plan right here, and then we’ll talk strategically about what we want to accomplish. His IQ is really high. We simply clicked, you know? Strategically. That’s vital. You could meet but not click. “He bought in right away.”
However, this was far from a fluff pitch. Atkinson, who beat out New Orleans’ associate head coach James Borrego and Minnesota’s lead assistant Micah Nori for the position, would be asking Mitchell to give up some of his responsibilities and playing time for the greater benefit. This was, basically, his first and best chance.
to sell Mitchell on a less-is-more strategy. He wanted to minimize the 28-year-old’s minutes in an attempt to preserve his health for the playoffs. Atkinson envisioned a bigger playmaking role for Mobley in which he would become their version of the Warriors’ Draymond Green, thereby lowering Mitchell’s time with the ball, while also empowering Garland more as a playmaker. He wanted to install a motion offense that would steer clear of the more predictable pick-and-roll and isolation-heavy scheme from before, with constant cutting and crashing of the boards among the core principles. And Atkinson, whose NBA coaching influences include Rick Adelman, Mike D’Antoni, Mike Budenholzer and Steve Kerr during his NBA journey, opted to listen first before he laid out his vision.
The partnership began right then.
“It wasn’t hard,” Mitchell said of trusting Atkinson’s message. “It’s just different. I mean, this is a different approach to my year this year. Minutes are lower. Obviously, my averages are lower, so it’s all about being able to trust in him. When you have a guy like this saying, like, ‘This is what can take us (to the next level) …’ then it makes it easy.”
The importance of Mitchell’s part in the plan, and the crucial nature of his contract extension, can’t be overstated. Not only was the five-time All-Star at the center of their post-LeBron James plan that came together when they landed him from Utah in September 2022, but also the fact that he could be a free agent the following summer if he didn’t sign the extension meant their core might crumble if he didn’t re-up. And if Atkinson couldn’t find a way to truly connect with Mitchell, to inspire buy-in and a necessary bond they would all need by speaking his basketball language, then who knew what might come next.
Just days later, after their meeting that set such an important tone in this crucial Cavs relationship, Mitchell’s decision to ink a three-year, $150 million extension gave Cleveland the kind of extended chance at contention that few, if any, teams have in today’s luxury-tax laden game. The question now, with Mitchell and Atkinson’s relationship creating a bit of a butterfly effect, is whether these Cavs can live up to the early season hype and avoid the kind of anticlimactic ending that Mitchell knows all too well.
Once Mitchell’s deal was done, the moves toward a longer runway continued. Mobley signed a five-year, $224 million extension in late July. Allen signed his three-year, $90 million deal in early August. The core, at long last, was set. And now, with the Cavs a league-best 17-1 and all of the statistical signs pointing to them being truly special, Mitchell is ready to admit this much: After all the playoff heartache he’s endured during eight seasons, he’s allowing himself to get excited about the postseason possibilities again.
As Mitchell is painfully aware, there’s a different kind of pressure that comes with being an elite player who hasn’t made a deep playoff run or, better yet, won a title. He has made the playoffs seven times but has yet to reach a conference finals. There was plenty of premature positivity along the way.
His Utah Jazz had the league’s best record in the 2020-21 campaign (52-20), only to fall to the LA Clippers in the second round of the playoffs. Cleveland was 22-11 in his first season in town, finished 51-31, then fell in the first round to the New York Knicks (five games). Last season’s Cavs were 35-16 after a nine-game winning streak that ran through mid-February, only to go 13-18 down the stretch before the postseason arrived and the Celtics took them out.
You get the idea.
Still, these first five weeks have been nothing short of historic. Before their loss in Boston on Nov. 19, Cleveland had become just the fourth team all-time to start a season 15-0. The Cavs have the league’s best net rating, the best offensive rating and the 10th-best defensive rating. For this time of year, it doesn’t get much more impressive.
“I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited,” Mitchell said. “When you sign somewhere, and when you commit to be somewhere. …”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts.
“I was confident this was going to happen, but did I think it was going to happen this year?” he asked. “I can’t say I thought it was going to just click right away. I’m not going to sit here and be like, Oh, yeah (I saw it coming). But that’s what makes it exciting. It’s like, ‘All right, this is everything I envisioned for this team. And it’s f—ing happening.’
“But now I make the joke, like, we screwed ourselves now, because now we know who we are. We showed who we are. So this is who we are. This is the barometer. This is the worst, in my eyes, and we haven’t even continued to grow. Evan is just starting to scratch the surface. DG (Garland) and myself are just continuing to get better. (Jarrett Allen). So there’s definitely some excitement, for sure.”
The mood change from seven months ago is quite stark.
By the time the Cavs’ season ended in Game 5 in Boston on May 15, the issues that led to the coaching change were impossible to ignore. The concern over Mitchell’s playing time appeared to be founded when a calf injury prohibited him from playing in the last two games against the Celtics.
The developmental delay with Mobley was a problem. And team sources say Garland, the 24-year-old former All-Star whose production declined last season while playing alongside Mitchell, had made it clear internally that he wasn’t content camping out in the corner. He wanted the freedom to be his best self, and to share a more equitable part of the offensive load with Mitchell in the backcourt. With Garland signed through the summer of 2028, Cavs officials believed putting him at ease was paramount. The choice to part ways with Bickerstaff and add Atkinson, in turn, was designed to provide the solutions to their many problems.
“I wanted the organization to make that (coaching) decision,” stated Mitchell. “Obviously, I know people probably believe I f—ing did everything, but at the end of the day, I trust Koby (Altman, Cavs general manager). I trust the front office to say, ‘All right, what’s the decision?’ Then you figure out what the future looks like.
With Mitchell’s contract decision looming, he sought clarification on the coaching front before making his ultimate decision.
“Obviously it played a factor, just to figure out what’s going to happen,” he says. “When we met before I signed in Los Angeles, (Atkinson) basically told me, ‘Hey, here’s the strategy. We’re going in with a plan.
The concept of intentionality…Yes, they devised a plan. And the most important thing for me is to just stick to the plan, trust it, and believe in it.”
However, given the undeniable link between statistics and stardom, and the fact that Atkinson’s theories may make it more difficult to receive individual honors, that was easier said than done. Much to Mitchell’s annoyance, Atkinson advocated a modest touch of load management to keep him healthier and fresher come postseason season.
However, Mitchell’s and other results have only increased Atkinson’s confidence in his method. While Mitchell’s minutes have gone from a team-high 35.3 per game last season to a team-high 31.2 this year, he’s still producing at an All-Star level (24.2 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 3.7 assists).
this season, compared to 26.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 6.1 assists the previous season). He even took a game off to relax lately, sitting out Nov. 17 versus Charlotte (a win), which was designated as an off day before the season began. Meanwhile, Garland is contributing at a better rate per minute than he was during his All-Star season in 2021-22 (31.6 points and 10.8 assists per 100 possessions this season vs. 29.7 points and 11.8 assists then). His minutes have also decreased, from 33.4 to 30.1.
Mitchell believes that their early on-court synergy is the latest sign that this backcourt can be special for years to come. As for the discomfort that arose when so many
wondered if this backcourt might be broken up, Mitchell said the relationship they’d built during two seasons together served as a stabilizer of sorts. “We always knew what we had as a friendship off the floor,” Mitchell said of Garland. “I think that’s when — excuse my language — sh– gets f—ing sticky. When you don’t have that relationship, there’s no trust.
“I let him take that time, because like I tell him, ‘We are fine.’ …I was like, ‘No, we’re good. Take the time you need.’ He had a lot of stuff going on last year, had a rough year (including a broken jaw that cost him six weeks midway through the season). I said, ‘Come back and be ready to roll.’ That’s it. At the end of the day, that’s going to shut all the sh– up. So for us, that’s really what it was, because you can’t control what the outside narrative is.
It is what it is, and now he’s hooping, which is all that matters at the end of the day.”
However, if these Cavs find a way to reach the NBA’s promised land, winning it all after the summer of uncertainty that fueled all of their domination, it will all come back to the Four Seasons meeting, where Atkinson and Mitchell began laying the groundwork together. That’s where the trust began to grow, and Mitchell’s decision to give this squad a longer look resulted in one of the league’s most unlikely success stories.
“(Mitchell) is the one who told me, ‘Hey, our next step is empowering Evan,'” Atkinson explained. “It was not, ‘I need the ball more, or we need to run this for me.'” It was basically, ‘How can this team make the next jump?’ And then he included Darius in the discourse. He added, “Me and Darius can be great together.” There is no reason why we can’t be excellent together.
“So much of it came from him. He simply had a strong grasp on where this club needed to go. That helped me steer the ship since I had the blueprint.”
And a fantastic lunch to boot.
“It was a nice lunch,” Atkinson stated with a smile. “A really nice lunch.”
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