CLEVELAND \u2014\u00a0Donovan Mitchell was already in store for an emotional week.<\/p>\n
The Cleveland Cavaliers guard was selected to the NBA All-Star Game for the seventh straight season and will watch his fianc\u00e9e, Coco Jones, sing \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d before Super Bowl 60 on Sunday.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Donovan Mitchell is having an emotional week
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The Cleveland Cavaliers guard has been selected for his seventh NBA All-Star Game
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His fianc\u00e9e, Coco Jones, will sing at the Super Bowl 60 pregame ceremonies on Sunday<\/p>\n
Things changed on Wednesday when the Cavaliers traded Darius Garland for James Harden<\/p>\n
Things took an unexpected turn on Wednesday when the Cavaliers traded Darius Garland to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot. There\u2019s just so much going on,\u201d Mitchell said after\u00a0Cleveland\u2019s 124-91 victory over the Clippers\u00a0on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers are on their longest road trip of the season and face the Sacramento Kings on Saturday night. Mitchell will then travel three hours to Santa Clara, California, to watch Jones perform before rejoining the Cavaliers in Denver for Monday\u2019s game against the Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Mitchell and the Grammy-winning singer announced their engagement last July after two years of dating. When the Cavaliers were eliminated in five games by the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals last year, Mitchell said he was taking time off and \u201cgoing on tour with good music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones was on tour last summer after releasing her debut studio album.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited for her. It\u2019s just great to see the success she\u2019s having in her own right. She deserves this,\u201d Mitchell said last week before the Cavaliers started their six-game road trip. \u201cIt\u2019s something that is new for me to kind of just watch it. As much as I am her fianc\u00e9e, I\u2019m a fan of her work and her work ethic. And to see it on the biggest stage, it\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitchell, in his ninth season, is sixth in the NBA in scoring and averaging a career-high 28.8 points. He also leads the NBA with 178 made 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
The Harden trade moves Mitchell back to full-time shooting guard. Garland was sidelined for stretches this season with big toe injuries, and Mitchell took on some point guard duties.<\/p>\n
Harden, expected to make his Cavaliers debut Saturday night, is averaging 25.4 points per game and is on track for his best season since 2019-20.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our ceiling is definitely higher when you have a guy like James Harden. You know what he brings, but with that, there\u2019s definitely a higher expectation,\u201d Mitchell said Wednesday night. \u201cIt\u2019s not gonna always be pretty. You make a move at the deadline, there\u2019s gonna be bumps in the road, but for us this is the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cavaliers president of basketball operations Koby Altman also admitted there will be a little bit of an acclimation period for his new backcourt to get up to speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to adapt to James. He\u2019s that good a player, but I think we\u2019re going to still run,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to get the ball in Donovan\u2019s hands, and we need to get the ball in James\u2019 hands so that we\u2019re going to have a great possession. And in the playoffs, I do still think it comes down to largely a half-court game, and so we really are thinking about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said during a press conference on Thursday that taking part in the Super Bowl is \u201cpretty much the top of the top.\u201d Her father, Mike Jones, was on the Tennessee Titans squad that played in Super Bowl 34.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think that this is one of the most highly-viewed events of all time, and so it\u2019s hard to compete. Maybe my wedding will be up there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Mitchell hopes this will not be Jones\u2019 only Super Bowl appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s going to perform at the Super Bowl at halftime,” he said. “That\u2019s the next goal. She\u2019s going to keep doing her thing, but it\u2019s a blessing to be able to somehow find a way to be a couple of hours away the night before. So it\u2019s going to be special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014\u00a0Donovan Mitchell was already in store for an emotional week. The Cleveland Cavaliers guard was selected to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[1970,1977,2097,7,305,4056,6,67,16,8424,986,477,4055,8757,66,1974],"class_list":{"0":"post-588846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-associated-press","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-kings","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-ohio","17":"tag-ohio-cleveland-cavaliers","18":"tag-sacramento","19":"tag-sacramento-kings","20":"tag-sacramentokings","21":"tag-spectrum-news-staff","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116030874117849844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588846","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=588846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}