The Los Angeles Lakers have been named as a potential landing spot for Cleveland Cavaliers‘ five-time All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell.

Mitchell could be the next star to become available as early as this summer, according to Bleacher Report’s Eric Pincus.

“The buzz in NBA circles suggests that barring a run to the NBA Finals, Mitchell will decline an extension and look elsewhere, and the Cavaliers are more likely than not to move him well before he can leave outright as a free agent,” Pincus wrote on April 5.

Mitchell’s response to Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert’s confidence that his star player would sign an extension this summer only added more fuel to the fire.

“I got a lot of things to focus on outside of that right now,” Mitchell told reporters on March 30. “So, I’ll handle that when it comes.”

According to Pincus, the Cavaliers star “is all but certain to decline his $37.1 million player option for the 2025-26 season to explore unrestricted free agency next July.”

In January, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported that the Lakers had discussions about trading for Mitchell if he becomes available.“The Lakers have discussed internally the possibility of packaging three picks, along with players they already have on their books, to pursue a bona fide star, such as Donovan Mitchell of the Cleveland Cavaliers or Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks, team sources told ESPN,” McMenamin wrote on January 23.

Lakers’ Potential Trade Package

The Lakers will have three first-round picks available after the NBA Draft in June, which is the major driving force for why they stayed put at the trade deadline.

“We didn’t want to shoot a small bullet now that would only lead to very marginal improvement at the expense of making a much bigger and more impactful movement potentially in June and July,” Lakers general manager and vice president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka told reporters via Lakers Nation after the February 8 trade deadline.