It’s Halloween, less than 24 hours after the Cleveland Cavaliers lapped the Lakers to move to 4-0, and Donovan Mitchell is on the phone talking about how scary his squad can be now that it’s starting to figure things out on offense.
The five-time All-Star didn’t dress up this year—“Not for me,” says Mitchell. He’s focused on his day job, leading Cleveland on an early season heater that has the Cavs sitting atop the Eastern Conference standings with a perfect 9-0 mark.
Like a lot of NBA vets these days, Mitchell’s also been in the ears of his teammates, schooling the young ones about vino after a summer apprenticeship in Napa Valley with The Prisoner wine company. Mitchell and the brand recently made a joint donation of $25,000 to the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to higher education for the incarcerated.
GQ Sports caught up with Mitchell during an off-day to discuss wine, his beloved New York Mets, the Cavaliers’ blistering start, how the broken NBA All-Star Game can be improved, and why he always keeps receipts.
Why was this partnership with The Prisoner so appealing?
I wanted to get into the wine space. Outside of Prisoner being amazing and tasting delicious, whether it’s their stance on prisoner reform or education, or using their brand in a space where there aren’t too many African-Americans, I love to be one of the faces of that.
Is there one lesson you picked up from the apprenticeship that stands above the others?
The amount of time that it takes is something I did not understand. I didn’t know it took years. It really showed how fine and how meticulous and detailed these things are. I’m new to this, so my grammar, my vocabulary, and all these different things are new. But just being able to understand that this is a process—a detailed process—was something that I was truly fascinated by in my time there.
Have you been educating your teammates now that you have all this wine knowledge?
I started talking to them about it a little bit. Having older teammates for most of my career, whether it was in Utah with Rudy [Gobert], Joe [Ingles], Ricky [Rubio], Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanović, all these guys who were wine drinkers, they were trying to do what I’m currently doing with my teammates—trying to put me on game. And now I find myself doing the same thing.
Walt Frazier called you one of his favorite players to watch before the Cavs defeated the Knicks at MSG last week. Since you grew up in the New York area, I imagine that’s gotta be pretty cool to hear Clyde raving about your game.
Man, 1,000 percent. I didn’t know that until you just told me. Growing up in New York around the Knicks, watching the Knicks, to hear that is pretty special for sure.
If you could have a glass of wine with Clyde, what would you want to talk about?
I would want to ask him how many suits he has, to be honest with you. That’s something I would definitely want to know. Him and Craig Sager, may he rest in peace, I think are the two guys you think of when it comes to fashion and color commentary. I would definitely want to ask him and talk to him about what got him into [fashion] and obviously the way he kind of rhymes the words together that’s turned out to be his signature. I would want to know, when did that start?
The Cavs were a trendy pick to make the Eastern Conference Finals and you guys have gotten off to an excellent start. For NBA fans sleeping on the Cavs, why is your team so dangerous?
I think we’re starting to figure things out on the offensive side. Defensively we’ve always been a top 5, top 3 team. Obviously I would love to go 82-0, but the biggest thing for us is we’re learning how to play as a group, how to move with pace, how to run around, spacing, and that makes us dangerous. And our defense hasn’t dropped while we’re in this new offense and we’re playing with a different pace and we want to keep that up.
Having a healthy Darius Garland helps. You recently called out Garland’s detractors after the game against the Knicks, saying you’ve been keeping receipts on the guys who have called him out. My question is: are you keeping receipts from the people who have been critical of you in the past?
Um…no. [Laughs] Obviously it’s there, I’m not going to say it’s not. It’s motivating. I know who I am. I know what I bring to the table. Winning is not just an individual thing, it’s a team sport. For me, understanding if we’re going to be the best team the conversation definitely changes. At the end of the day, as a group we have to continue to get better. Winning games in the regular season is great, but winning in the playoffs is equally important, if not more. You do that, the conversation around your name changes.
There are only two players in the NBA who have averaged 25 points and three made 3s per game the last four seasons: You and Steph Curry. How cool is it to hear yourself grouped exclusively with Steph?
When you put your name with one of the greats it’s something that’s special. But like I said, I know who I am, I know how hard I work, and at the end of the day those stats are great and those numbers are great, but ultimately the goal is to win a championship. As long as I can continue to be that player that helps us, that’s all that matters to me. But you don’t take it for granted when you’re in those conversations.
For a guy with serious hops like yourself, what’s more electric: dunking on a dude or burying a back-breaking three?
Probably a back-breaking three, because they’re worth more points, if I’m gonna be honest. Having three over two I’ll take that every day of the week. It’s better on your body to shoot threes instead of dunking the ball. I’m not mad at dunking on somebody, but hitting a three—especially a back-breaking three at that—is definitely better.
You’re a five-time All-Star. You’re probably headed toward your sixth selection. So I’m curious to get your take on how the All-Star Game can be improved because fans have plenty of reasons to criticize it.
Hmm, I think there’s ways. I’ve always brought up the idea of adding an MC like you’re at Rucker Park or Dyckman. Have a little streetball vibe to it. I think that would be pretty dope. Like you look at two years ago when Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum went at it two possessions in a row. I’m using them as an example here, but when Jaylen hit a shot, say the person gets on a mic and starts hyping up the crowd, the competitor in you is going to want to go back at them. We’re all competitors at the end of the day, and nobody wants to be the guy who got crossed up. I’m not saying it’ll fix it, but I definitely think it’s something that could be dope for sure.
How much fun was it watching your Mets make a run to the National League Championship Series?
Man, it was a lot of fun. I haven’t had that much fun following the Mets since they made the World Series in 2015. I had made travel arrangements to go to the World Series and I was planning all these things out just because I was so excited, and to go from “not supposed to be there” to that three-week ride was fun. The season was ultimately a success, especially from how we started the season—0-5 to start, Jorge López throwing his glove into the crowd after getting taken out—you had all these different moments. Pete [Alonso] having…not a bad year—some people could say not to his standards—to being the hero and then [Francisco] Lindor being the MVP we all knew he could be and playing through the bad back. My guy Mark Vientos coming up and being a rising star. José Iglesias and the [“OMG”] song. You go down the line, it was just something that was really amazing. And now we have a floor and we can continue to build on that, especially in a year when we didn’t think this was going to happen.
Do you annually celebrate YE Day—Yankees Elimination Day?
[Laughs] Not publicly, because I know some of the guys on the Yankees and I have a lot of respect for them. But as a Mets fan to my core, as I see some of the Yankees I’ll give them some shit for sure. You definitely don’t want to see a parade in New York that’s not the Mets. I can sleep better at night knowing [a Yankees parade] won’t happen.
If the Mets had won it all, would you have made arrangements to make the parade if your schedule allowed it?
If it made sense, yeah. I had already planned to go to the [World Series] game on the 29th. I had a plane ready, my teammates were ready to go. We were going to stay the night after the Knicks game and before we played the Lakers.
New York mayor Eric Adams caught flack for wearing a Mets-Yankees hat in October. I already know the answer you’re going to give me, but I’m going to ask it anyway: Is it ever ok to wear a hat featuring the logos of New York’s baseball teams?
[Laughs] No. Never. Never. You can never. You have to pick one for sure. That can’t happen. Ever.
Should the Mets bring back Pete Alonso?
I think so. Homegrown, he wants to be there. He didn’t have the best year, but the way he endeared himself to the crowd, I think so. I think he’s earned that. Unless we go get, I don’t know, whoever, I think bringing Pete back is something that’s crucial. For all the slack he’s ever caught about not coming up in the big moments, he’s done it on occasion after occasion. So if I was making my pitch to [Mets owner] Steve Cohen I would say, yeah, you gotta bring him back.
Or go sign Juan Soto and the Yankees can sign Alonso.
That, too. Or I think you sign both of them. I’ve been talking to Juan Soto for two years about this.
So you’ll be part of the Juan Soto recruiting party?
I’ve been a part of it before I was even asked. This is something I took the initiative on two years ago and I’ve been on it since. This whole offseason I will make sure I’m in his ear every third day.
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