{"id":70464,"date":"2025-06-01T18:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T18:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/70464\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T18:15:11","slug":"ex-nba-star-kendrick-perkins-sends-brutal-message-to-donovan-mitchell-on-playoff-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/70464\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NBA Star Kendrick Perkins Sends Brutal Message to Donovan Mitchell on Playoff Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-NBA Star Kendrick Perkins Sends Brutal Message to Donovan Mitchell on Playoff Struggles<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland Cavaliers hitched their wagon to Donovan Mitchell last season when they fired head coach J.B. Bickerstaff for him.<\/p>\n

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They hired Kenny Atkinson to replace him in hopes of convincing the former Utah Jazz star to sign an extension.<\/p>\n

He eventually re-upped with Cleveland and they clearly believed he was the guy who could lead them to the promised land.<\/p>\n

Less than a year later, the Cavs suffered another disappointing playoff exit and with such an expensive roster there aren\u2019t many additions that can be made.<\/p>\n

This means that unless the roster magically ascends to true championship contention, the only way forward is to retool or blow the team up and start over.<\/p>\n

\"May<\/p>\n

May 9, 2025; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) during game three of the second round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs against the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images\u00a9 Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Mitchell is statistically one of the best playoff performers to ever play basketball, so it\u2019s hard to blame him for his teams\u2019 shortcomings in the postseason.<\/p>\n

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However, he has put himself into unwanted company by becoming one of the longest tenured stars in NBA history to never reach the conference finals.<\/p>\n

Retired NBA star Kendrick Perkins ripped into Mitchell recently, saying, \u201cA Donovan Mitchell-led team has never been to the conference finals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The six-time All-Star has reached the playoffs in every year of his playing career, but the second round is the furthest he\u2019s gotten.<\/p>\n

The past few seasons have seen the pressure ratchet up on Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 superstar Joel Embiid for not making the conference in his nine-year playing career and now Mitchell is beginning to catch the same heat.<\/p>\n

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The only superstar with a longer streak is Chris Paul who finally reached the conference finals with the Houston Rockets in 2018, 13 years into his career.<\/p>\n

Some of the criticism is unfair, but when you are as great as Mitchell is and consistently have highly seeded teams, the expectation is to win on a grand scale.<\/p>\n

Until the Cavs finally break through, Mitchell will continue to be scrutinized.<\/p>\n

Related: Cavs Give Promising Update on Donovan Mitchell\u2019s Playoff Status<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jun 1, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-NBA Star Kendrick Perkins Sends Brutal Message to Donovan Mitchell on Playoff Struggles originally appeared on Athlon Sports.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,2596,305,193,3846,864,194,126,3578,936,2058,3627,6,207,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-70464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-chris-paul","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-donovan-mitchell","15":"tag-houston-rockets","16":"tag-indiana-pacers","17":"tag-jb-bickerstaff","18":"tag-joel-embiid","19":"tag-kendrick-perkins","20":"tag-kenny-atkinson","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","23":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114609476339311078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70464","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=70464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}