Donovan Mitchell knows exactly where he stands with the Cleveland Cavaliers — and who he isn’t trying to be. The All-NBA first team guard addressed the ever-present comparisons to the franchise’s golden era, when LeBron James led the team to four straight NBA Finals and the city’s first major pro sports championship in more than 50 years. But Mitchell isn’t interested in chasing shadows. His focus is on building something new — not replicating the past.
“I’m not ‘Bron,” Mitchell said during a recent appearance on the Taylor Rooks X podcast. “Like I said, it goes back to being comfortable who you are. I’m not going to do it the same way that he did it. And who knows, maybe we get [to the NBA Finals], six times in a row. Maybe we do that for the next six years. Maybe we don’t. We’re not the LeBron James-Kyrie Irving Cavaliers. We do it differently. We do it with Evan (Mobley). We do it with myself. We do it with [Darius Garland]. We do it with Max (Strus). We do it with [Jarrett Allen] — all the guys on the roster.”
Mitchell, who arrived in a blockbuster trade from Utah in 2022, quickly became the face of the Cavaliers’ young core. But in a city still colored by LeBron’s legacy, there’s an unavoidable weight that comes with trying to lead the team back to an NBA title.
That context sharpened during the 2024-25 season, when Cleveland won 64 games — second-most in the league behind only the eventual champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The Cavaliers secured the East’s No. 1 seed for the first time since their 2016 title run, but their postseason ended in familiar fashion: a second-round exit for the second straight year.
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That disappointment only magnifies the pressure. After cruising through the regular season with one of the league’s deepest, most balanced rosters, the Cavaliers once again found themselves watching the Eastern Conference Finals from home. It was a sobering reminder of how far they’ve come and how much further they still need to go.
“I think it’s something people talk about, and it’s something that I think is great for the city, by all means,” Mitchell said of the comparisons. “And obviously, we have a picture of the parade and something we want to understand, ‘Hey, we want to do it our own way, while still having respect for what was done for the city.’ I think for me, understanding that we do it differently — we’re gonna try to find a way to do it differently.
“And if we succeed, fantastic. If we fail, I promise we’re going to keep going. There’s always that comparison, but there’s only one other time. But I think we’re all comfortable — I’m comfortable — to be like, that’s not us. That was that team. We are different.”
