{"id":547920,"date":"2026-01-20T01:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T01:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547920\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T01:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T01:40:15","slug":"why-donovan-mitchell-saw-his-all-star-starter-snub-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547920\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Donovan Mitchell saw his All-Star starter snub coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 As the Cavs finished their final warmup jumpers ahead of a 2:30 p.m. Eastern tip against the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA released the starters for the 2026 All-Star Game in Los Angeles. Donovan Mitchell<\/a>, a six-time All-Star and two-time starter, was not among them.<\/p>\n

Across the floor, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was.<\/p>\n

Mitchell never looked up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t want to know,\u201d Mitchell said when asked if someone told him beforehand.<\/p>\n

Mitchell entered the afternoon averaging 29 points per game, seventh-best in the league, while carrying one of the league\u2019s heaviest offensive burdens. His usage rate, on-off impact and late-game responsibilities remain elite, even as Cleveland\u2019s season has drifted away from last year\u2019s pace. <\/p>\n

Individually, his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 checks every All-Star box. Collectively, the Cavs have not<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the game unfolded, the usual tell never came. No graphic. No Humongotron announcement. Cleveland typically acknowledges milestones in real time, but this silence spoke clearly enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I kind of expected that,\u201d Mitchell said about his All-Star starter snub. \u201cThe guys that were named, their record is better than ours. So, naturally, you reward that. Obviously, yeah, I want to be a starter for sure, but understand that, hey, at the end of the day, we win games, everybody gets rewarded. We haven\u2019t won games necessarily at the rate we would like to. And that\u2019s what comes first and everything else comes with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That perspective reflects how Mitchell has framed this season internally. His scoring average has climbed. His efficiency is at a career-best. Yet none of it has translated into sustained team momentum.<\/p>\n

How to watch the Cavs: See how to watch the Cavs games with this handy game-by-game TV schedule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cleveland was overwhelmed Monday, falling 136-104 and slipping to 24-20, back into the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference<\/a>. Mitchell finished with a team-high 19 points, but it came on 5-of-18 shooting and 1-of-9 from deep, a night emblematic of the broader tension surrounding this team. When the Cavs struggle to generate advantages, Mitchell is asked to create something from nothing. Against elite defenses, that margin disappears quickly.<\/p>\n

The All-Star voting reflected that gray area. Mitchell finished sixth in fan voting, sixth among players and sixth with the media.<\/p>\n

Now, he waits on the coaches\u2019 vote to determine whether he makes the All-Star team at all.<\/p>\n

Mitchell did not frame the moment as disrespect. He framed it as reality.<\/p>\n

The Cavs have championship aspirations<\/a>. They have not played like a team demanding individual accolades. Mitchell, who has never advanced past the conference semifinals in eight postseason appearances, has been vocal internally about that standard. Personal recognition, in his view, is downstream from winning.<\/p>\n

For Cleveland, that remains the unresolved equation. Until it balances, even one of the league\u2019s most prolific scorers can be left watching the screen stay dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 As the Cavs finished their final warmup jumpers ahead of a 2:30 p.m. Eastern tip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,69732,3846,6,75237],"class_list":["post-547920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-basketball","tag-cavaliers","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-cleveland-cavaliers-2025-2026","tag-clevelandcavaliers","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder-2025-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115924882279855837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}