Imagine making all the requisite wedding preparations, getting your wedding suit/dress tailored, arranging the catering, inviting all the guests, and booking the venue. You wake up excited to walk towards the altar, make your vows, and say “I do”. And when the wedding commences, you get abandoned at the altar. That's what the New York Knicks must have felt after their failed pursuit of ex-Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell.
Continuing with the wedding metaphor, to make matters worse, you later find out that your fiancé would rather decide to get hitched to somebody else they were talking to all the while you were engaged. That's essentially what happened after the Cleveland Cavaliers beat out the Knicks for Mitchell's services, the Athletic reported.
The Knicks courted Mitchell all offseason long, and they believed, even after negotiations between them and the Jazz broke down, that they had the best offer on the table and that the Jazz would come back and finalize the deal. Essentially, the Jazz ghosted the Knicks afterward, as the Jazz never spoke to the Knicks regarding Mitchell again.
It was only last week when the Cavaliers opened negotiations with the Jazz for Mitchell, but the Jazz wanted to hear the Knicks out, going as far as nearing the completion of a trade that would've sent Donovan Mitchell to New York last weekend. The Jazz were prepared to accept an offer centered on RJ Barrett before his extension, but the Knicks were unable to finalize the trade and thus made good on their ultimatum, signing Barrett to a $120 million extension on Monday.
Despite the extension, the Jazz still would've wanted to acquire Barrett in a Mitchell trade, but the Cavaliers swooped in and moved quickly, entering intense negotiations with the Jazz and finishing the deal in two days, leaving the Knicks on the wedding altar, crestfallen.
The Knicks will be left to rue the missed opportunity they had to acquire the three-time All-Star Donovan Mitchell. If only they had said yes more quickly, then they might be the ones jumping for joy, not the Cavaliers.