Donovan Mitchell diary: ‘This team is going to be special’ with James Harden

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Donovan Mitchell has an idea what’s on the mind of NBA fans and media when it comes to the new union between him and his future Hall of Fame teammate James Harden.

“It’s the question everybody asks: How are we going to coexist? What are we going to do?” Mitchell told Andscape on Saturday at the Intuit Dome before the NBA 3-point competition. “I’ve never played with a guy like James Harden. I never had a guy like that on my team. And we’re not here to figure out like who’s bigger, better or whatever. How are we going to win? And I think having that relationship helps. But it also speaks to the type of people that him and I are. We’re trying to figure what’s right.

“For him to go out there and say he’s trying to help me, that’s huge. That’s huge for everything. That speaks to where he’s at. For us to coexist, just to be able to communicate and have that open dialog — ‘Hey, this is what I see. This is where I can help build off you.’ — we are great up here mentally, but also with that relationship we’re just trying to win the game. I don’t care how it happens. Let’s try to win the game. Winning is the end all, right? I’m not worried about how will fit and how we’ll coexist because we have the same goal in mind and it doesn’t matter how we get there. We just want to get there.”

During the 2025-26 NBA season, Mitchell is exclusively sharing insight into his life on and off the court with the Cavaliers in his monthly diary on Andscape. Draymond Green, Vince Carter, Trae Young, CJ McCollum, Fred VanVleet, De’Aaron Fox, Cade Cunningham, James Wiseman, Josh Jackson, Bradley Beal and, most recently, Orlando Magic forward Paolo Banchero, have participated in previous Andscape diaries.

Mitchell entered this season averaging 24.7 points, 4.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds in 539 regular-season games for the Cavaliers and the Utah Jazz during eight seasons. The former University of Louisville star is also a two-time All-NBA selection and winner of the 2018 NBA Slam Dunk contest. The 2025 All-NBA first-team selection led the Cavs to an Eastern Conference-best 64-18 record after starting last season 15-0, but their title hopes were dashed with a crushing loss in the second round of the playoffs to the Indiana Pacers.

Mitchell entered the 2026 All-Star break averaging a career-high 29 points to go with 5.9 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game this season. The Cavaliers also are fourth in the Eastern Conference standings with a 34-21 record, with five consecutive wins and nine in their last 10 games. Cleveland is also 3-0 since acquiring 11-time NBA All-Star James Harden in a Feb. 3 trade from the Los Angeles Clippers for guard Darius Garland and a 2026 second-round pick. The Cavaliers also recently acquired veteran guards Dennis Schroder and Keon Ellis from the Sacramento Kings.

It’s been a busy two weeks for Mitchell with the Harden trade, watching his fiancée Coco Jones performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and Bad Bunny’s halftime show performance at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 12. He also saw his mentor and future Hall of Famer Chris Paul retire abruptly on Feb. 13, then competed in the 3-point competition on Feb. 14. Mitchell scored six points for the older veteran Team USA Stripes in a 47-21 blowout loss to Team USA Stars in the NBA All-Star Championship Game at Intuit Dome. Next up for the 29-year-old is taking a couple days off with Jones in his New York City-area home before returning to action later this week with the Cavaliers.

The following is Mitchell’s fifth diary this season.

All-Star Weekend means the world to me. You never lose the childhood dream of being here. You never lose it no matter how tired you are. We had the West Coast swing, went back to Cleveland, flew right back to L.A. I could easily sit here and be like, ‘I ain’t gonna do this. This is whatever.’ But at the end of the day, this is a blessing. This is a privilege to be here. And you always hold that because you never let that go and never lose the childhood dream of being here.

I like the [USA versus World] format. I really didn’t trip on the format. I didn’t love last year’s, I will say that. But even if it’s East-West, I just think the level of competition was great. That’s kind of where it starts, but I’m glad we’re all going out there competing and hopefully we continue to do that each year.

Being on the OG team was crazy. But you understand that, hey, you’re getting older. The league is getting younger, too. So, you got to understand that. But we definitely played like the OGs that last game. So, I guess it was fitting. It’s just a great to be considered one of those guys at that level. And now the biggest thing is you can continue to hold on to it as the older guys pass that torch down to us and keep doing our thing.

I played all right. I wish I played more. I could’ve played more. But it is what it is. When you have so many guys, it’s just hard to figure things out. But yeah, at the end of the day, I wasn’t voted a starter. So, the starters play more. You get in. You play. You get locked in and have a good time, which I did. And get ready for the second part of the season.

You just allow yourself to rest. I go home. I chill. Me and my fiancée will watch TV, get some treatment, get some work in two days, and then get right back to it. It’s just like a little reset. I love that place. And for me, just be able to go there and kind of reset your brain … I work out of my gym. I see my family and friends, and then you get right back to right back to business as usual.

I did steal a [tree] prop from [Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LXI halftime performance]. I took one home. So, that’s kind of outside of it being about Courtney [Jones] that whole night, the whole day, that was probably one of my prouder moments being able to steal part of the halftime show.

As we were leaving on a golf cart, I saw the dancers in the trees. And they were throwing [the tree costumes] away, some were keeping them. I watched this happen and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to take one home.’ I went up there, I said, ‘Hey, can I grab one?’ They gave me one. I took it and sped off in the golf cart. It’s historic. That’s how I look at it. So, I saw one go on the internet for [$10,000] on eBay. As it ages, it probably can go for [$50,000-$60,000]. So that’s the starting bid… [Jones’ Super Bowl] dress, we’re going to frame later. Her dress, the Whitney Houston inspired dress and then the fake tree. So, this is all I want.

Not being able to see her for some of days, weeks and understanding that this is part of the [Super Bowl] process. This is part of the sacrifice you make, to watch her continuously be so meticulous about every little detail, and still not be satisfied because the greats never are. Even when they do great, they think, ‘I could have done this right.’ To see all that planning go into effect and being able to do it at the biggest stage, to see the emotion on her face with the song and what the moment meant, for me that’s the coolest part. You understand and you see the success she has.

You’re with someone who understands you, who sees you. Not to say if she wasn’t who she was. it would be different. I don’t think that’s it. But it is definitely an attraction of understanding there’s some days where I’m going through it, I’m exhausted and I don’t really have much to give. And it flips, vice versa. To be able to see the final moments of what those exhaustion days are, that’s what ultimately makes it special. That’s what brings us closer because we speak the same language — differently, but the same language. I think that’s something that you hold near and dear to each other. And in those moments, I think it’s what’s special.

I stayed for obviously for [Jones’] performance. Then we watched the first half and watched the halftime performance and that was spectacular. Then we got out of there and I had to go play Denver the next night.

[Cavaliers general manager] Kobe [Altman] obviously called me. 4I was at our house here in L.A. and getting a massage, getting treatment actually. And it was like I saw the report, obviously, the day before. And then for it to happen a day later was like, ‘Okay, this is real.’

I called James immediately. I know him. I was excited to get it going. And he relayed the same message. And after that, that was it. It was like right back to it. I understand that this team is going to be something special with him right now. We’re 3-0 so far, so we’re not doing too bad. But I’m excited to see what we do when we get some practices under our belt and we’ll see what that looks like going forward.

When you have a relationship with someone early in your career, it gives a foundation. You’re not reestablishing everything halfway through a season. And that’s something that really helps [with Harden]. Then, when you get to the basketball, when you have two high IQ guys, you figure it out. ‘This is where I can be. This where he can be.’ And it’s a testament to him and a credit to him to be able to come in and make that work.

But for [Harden] and I, the first few years we played against each other in the playoffs. For him and myself, going to, these trips overseas with Adidas — to China, to Paris, to Spain — me being at his ‘H-Town Weekends’ [in Houston] with him and obviously Chris Paul, too. So, now to be able to have that and then go from that to being where we are now and being Adidas guys, we always see each other, run into each other and communicate. To that, to be here, it’s pretty wild and I’m excited to see what we got going forward.”

For us, as a team and as a collective, we have to understand that this isn’t going to be easy. Just because we made some moves, they’re still going to be challenging. We’ve been playing good basketball. We’ve been finding a rhythm lately. But at the end of the day, this is the tough stretch.

This is the second half of the season. We got to go out there and find ways to execute together. But when you have a guy like James, you got Dennis [Schroder] coming in, two vets, and obviously, Keon [Ellis], who’s younger but still brings and has a basketball know-with-all, we can make something happen this group.

Evan [Mobley] is back. Dean [Wade] is back. Max [Strus] is coming back hopefully soon. We have a lot of high IQ talented guys, but we got to just keep building on what got us here. Even before the James trade, we got to continue to build on who we are. This is our foundation. It’s our core. We got to keep building on.

We have a [title] shot here. And just because I say that doesn’t mean anything. We’ve got to go out there and do the work. But when you when you add a guy like James, you have Dennis and you have to what we’ve already been building as a group, you definitely see an opportunity here. We have to go out there and seize it. The opportunity is right here in front of us. So, we got to go out there and take care of business. Get some good practicing, get some good work in and be ready to go.

[Harden and I] talked a little bit, but I’m going to start probably talking to him when I get back home. A big reset was needed for everybody, especially after all the craziness of the past week.

This a level of hunger that we need to have, and I have no doubt we have it. We’ve had it for the past few weeks. So, it’s not just something that we need to discover. We need to continue to do what we’ve been doing [after] the break and just be hungry like we have been. Obviously, we have to get James, Dennis and Keon acclimated and continue to do what we do, but continue to be hungry, continue to be desperate. That’s the biggest thing.

I wouldn’t be in the NBA if it wasn’t for Chris Paul and Paul George. Those two told me after a workout when I was making my decision to stay in the draft or come back, they said, ‘Hey you need to be in the league. You don’t need to go back to school,’ in a situation where I’m 19. I was trying to figure out what do I do. Do I need to go back to school? How do I figure it out?

And this wasn’t with NIL where you can come back. It was like, if you go, you go, and that’s it. So, I’m freaking out. There’s no testing the waters. It’s how you make a decision. And for them to kind of give me that guidance and motivation to go make that move when I was terrified of what I should do, to be honest — because I didn’t see this happening for myself — but they saw it. And I appreciate [Paul] for that because he didn’t really gain anything from doing that.”

To see [Paul’s] career end the way did, I think it’s BS. I don’t know. I don’t see all the reports. I don’t know the ins and outs of everything. That’s not my job. But I know when you have a guy like that, there’s a level that he has to be [respected] and he wasn’t given that opportunity, which I think is messed up. But all that being said, he’s a hell of a person. Hell of a point guard. Hell of a player. He has done so much for this game. As a president of the [players’ union] he’s done so much for us. I was going to pay my respect to CP, because he’s done so much for me, but also for the game of basketball.

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