The aftermath of the earthquake-like deal that sent Donovan Mitchell to the Cleveland Cavaliers was just as interesting as the deal itself. On the one hand is the Cavaliers, now positioned as legitimate Eastern his conference contenders for the next few years. On the other hand, we have the Jazz, a team that was the number one seed in the Western Conference just two seasons ago. And now it’s clearly flagging a rebuild.
But what makes the deal so interesting is that the New York Knicks franchise, which was seen as a runaway favorite to acquire Mitchell, was finally able to agree terms with Utah. The missing third component. There’s been plenty of coverage about the Knicks actually giving Mitchell some jazz: ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said in July that RJ Barrett, Obi Toppin, Mitchell Robinson, and three unprotected first-round picks. but Nicks recently declined to include it. 22-year-old guard Quentin Grimes accepted the offer, prompting the Jazz to look elsewhere.
Hall of Famer and current TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley was in talks Friday and received “insider information” from Knicks senior executive William Wesley, also known as Worldwide Wes. said he got it. Berkley said Wesley told him that jazz wanted a lot more than what was being reported.
“I’m going to give you inside information. I actually had this conversation with World Wide Wes last night at dinner,” Barkley said. Did you not trade at all? [The Jazz] I wanted my wife, my children.
“…he says, ‘we obviously wanted a deal,’ but ‘they wanted my wife, my kids, my grandchildren. They were just trying to trick someone,’ so he said, and I give them credit because you can’t let everything go.”
Every story has three sides. In this case, it’s the Knicks side, the Utah side, and the truth. So anything that comes out of the Knicks executives should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, it’s in their best interest to appear to have made every reasonable effort to win a three-time All-Star.
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But Berkley’s comments also speak to the nebulous nature of negotiations and reporting. According to Wojnarowski, the final offer the Jazz were ready to accept was his first-round pick of Barrett, Grimes, and his three, possibly with his third-round pick light. It was protection. From an outside perspective that doesn’t necessarily look like a godfather, his 26-year-old allies in his NBA caliber look akin to Mitchell’s, but whether the Jazz ultimately accepted the deal or whether the two teams would be able to do so would be a big deal. I’m not sure how close I was to actually closing the deal.
In the end, the Knicks extending Barrett was a clear sign they were ready to move on from Mitchell’s negotiations, and the Jazz turned to the Cavaliers. As Barkley said, the Knicks have stuck to a position of not wanting to mortgage all of their futures for Mitchell, and will now accept the consequences for better or worse. .
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