Going for broke in Cleveland

Amid loud conversation about fear of the second apron, the only team over that threshold in 2025-26 signs up for potential further flirtation with it in the coming years. What are the Cavaliers cooking up?

Good morning. The World Cup is back today. And big Summer League games are happening. Let's basketball.

News broke Tuesday that the Cavaliers and Donovan Mitchell had reached a max extension that will kick in for 2027-28 and run four years. As Jared Dubin notes in a detailed piece in his newsletter Last Night In Basketball, Mitchell's contract will actually likely outpace the 35% max level it's assigned in the out years because the NBA's salary cap has been growing slower than the max 8% raises teams can give extended players. By the end of the deal, Mitchell's deal is on track to be 37.5% of the cap ... when he's in his mid-30s.

This is all so interesting because Mitchell is widely rated somewhere similar to Jaylen Brown in the overall NBA pecking order, maybe a couple ticks higher based on MVP and All-NBA voting over the past four years. Mitchell has an extra All-NBA nod, and that one was a first team honor in 2024-25. Mitchell has also received MVP votes in three different seasons over the past four with a No. 5 finish. Brown only received MVP votes this season, finishing No. 6. Mitchell is six weeks older than Brown.

Jaylen Brown was basically salary dumped on a contract similar but slightly smaller and two years shorter than the one Cleveland just handed to Mitchell.