Donovan Mitchell Joining LeBron Would Make Lakers a Contender amid NBA Trade Rumors

If the Los Angeles Lakers want to join the 2024-25 NBA championship race, they need to use this offseason to get their roster up to a contending-level.

That won't be easy for a club coming off a good-not-great 47-win campaign, which was immediately followed by a first-round ouster at the hands of the defending champion Denver Nuggets. Still, there's a difference between something being difficult and outright impossible.

That difference, for the Lakers, might be winning the Donovan Mitchell sweepstakes.

To be clear, there's no guarantee those sweepstakes actually take place. Mitchell has at least another year left on his contract—he has a $37.1 million player option for 2025-26, per Spotrac—and the Cleveland Cavaliers surely won't be in a rush to give up the leading scorer and lone All-Star from their Eastern Conference semifinalist club.

With free agency potentially awaiting Mitchell next summer, though, Cleveland might not have a choice. If he declines a contract extension and indicates an intention to exit by 2025, the Cavaliers would have to trade him away for a mini-mountain of assets and avoid the risk of him leaving for nothing.

Since that feels like a real possibility, the Lakers are among the teams that "have their offers ready" for a Mitchell blockbuster trade, ESPN's Brian Windhorst said on Get Up.

"I'm trying to walk the line, because I don't want anybody to freak out in my hometown of Cleveland, but there are a number of teams that have their offers ready. They're ready," Windhorst said.

The bidding war for a Mitchell trade could be ferocious. The 27-year-old is right in the heart of his prime, having earned five consecutive All-Star selections and just paired his 26.6 points per game (ninth-most in the Association) with a career-high 6.1 assists.

His contract uncertainty could create hesitation for some, but teams that are confident he'd stick around longer than one season could pay a fortune to get him.

L.A. is equipped to cover that cost. Come draft night, the Lakers will have three first-round picks to move in a trade—including the 17th overall selection, which The Athletic's Jovan Buha reported the team could be "aggressive" in shopping—plus salaries to make the money work and plug-and-play players to send back.

While only the Cavaliers know what they'd be willing to accept from the Lakers, it feels like a safe bet Austin Reaves would have to be involved. L.A. hasn't appeared very interested in moving the third-year combo guard, "but if there was a scenario in which they could consider trading him, it would have to be for a bona fide All-Star," Buha said on Buha's Block.

Mitchell clearly meets that criteria. Just last season, he snagged an All-NBA second team spot while finishing sixth in MVP voting.

He also happens to be exactly the kind of high-end shot-creator the Lakers need to ease the burden on LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Even though L.A. would need to deplete some of its depth to get a deal done, the resulting star power would be worth it.

Mitchell doesn't have to dominate the basketball—he's already sharing touches with Darius Garland in Cleveland—and his catch-and-shoot looks could be pristine alongside gravitational forces like James and Davis. When Mitchell is on the ball, he can dust his own defender off the dribble and either finish the chances he creates or set up his teammates. Pick-and-roll actions involving any two of those three might be near impossible to stop.

The ceiling for these hypothetical Lakers would reach all the way into championship contention. That makes a Mitchell pursuit a no-doubter given L.A.'s narrow window to add to James' ring collection.