The Cleveland Cavaliers haven’t lived up to the lofty expectations they set coming into this season. That comes with consequences when it comes to individual accolades, as Donovan Mitchell has just found out.
Mitchell was wrongly excluded from being an Eastern Conference All-Star starter despite three guards being chosen for the starting lineup. The starters are voted on by a mixture of fan vote (50%), player vote (25%), and a media panel (25%). They landed on an Eastern Conference starting five of Jalen
Brunson, Tyrese Maxey, Jaylen Brown, Cade Cunningham, and Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Brunson, Maxey, and Brown are all worthy choices, but Mitchell has a good argument over every one of those players. Mitchell is averaging more points than Brunson, has been on/off splits than Maxey and Brown, and he’s scoring more efficiently than all three.
Mitchell is having the best season of his career and should be recognized for doing so. He’s averaging a career high in points while having the best efficient field goal percentage (58.3%) and true-shooting percentage (62.6%) of his career.
This has resulted in the Cavs playing their best basketball with Mitchell on the court. Cleveland is winning the minutes he’s playing by 7.1 points per 100 possessions (86th percentile) and lost the minutes he’s off by 5.4 points per 100 possessions. This has led to a differential of 12.5 points, which puts Mitchell in the 95th percentile for on/off differential.
The Cavaliers have had many issues this season, but Mitchell isn’t one of them.
Mitchell will still make the All-Star game this season, but he should’ve been voted an All-Star starter once again.
The NBA All-Star game will be a United States vs. the world format. There will be two teams of US players and one of international players. The three teams will participate in a 12-minute round-robin game tournament. The two teams with the best records will play in a final game.
Mitchell has mentioned that he wants to be on the world team due to his ties to Panama. We’ll see if those wishes are honored.
