Danny Ainge Reportedly Has Not One But TWO Mystery Teams Who Want Donovan Mitchell

Mystery teams!! Hell yeah. I freaking love when we get the “mystery” team report so the fact that we have not one, but TWO mystery teams apparently involved in the Donovan Mitchell sweepstakes is music to my ears. Now that the Durant drama is over we can fully dive into the Donovan Mitchell drama so naturally this is the exact time we hear about these mystery teams. I’m pretty sure that’s not an accident.

As someone who lived through 20 years of Trade Danny’s wheelings and dealings, it’s pretty obvious what’s happening here. First there were reports that he was still trying to bend the Knicks over. He wanted young players, he wanted like 7 picks and the Knicks smartly told him to kick rocks.

Then we hear about how they responded by offering Ainge a package of Fournier/Obi Toppin/and some picks which is extremely insulting for a player of Mitchell’s caliber who is also signed long term. So what does Ainge do? He drops the mystery team card in an attempt to create a market/bidding war

So who could these teams even be? Who needs a point guard that bad to where they might entertain Ainge’s price? It’s not exactly a long list when you think about it once you count out the Knicks. I wonder if someone like the Pelicans could be one, they have a SHIT TON of picks at their disposal and in theory could use a point guard upgrade. I’m just not sure they are going to put someone like Brandon Ingram on the table. I guess it depends on what Ainge wants. If he doesn’t care about the player coming back and cares more about the picks, then I love the Pels as a mystery team. Send them Devonte Graham and shit to make the money work.

Can you imagine a Mitchell/Ingram/CJ/Zion team? That’d be fun as hell.

It would make zero sense since they are also currently tanking, but what about OKC? They have no fewer than 20000000 picks last time I checked. They have some good young intriguing talent and even though they have Josh Giddey we know you can play Mitchell off ball. Perhaps Sam Presti would be willing to unload a ton of picks for a guy signed long term. My guess is Mitchell would bounce as soon as he could, so I’m sure it could be them.

What about the Grizzlies? If you remember they also have a ton of picks that they were willing to include for KD. Ainge has a history with MEM in terms of previous trades. They are good enough to where you would think Mitchell would stick around. He’s also young enough where maybe they are open to moving someone like Bane if they needed to. With Gobert gone, maybe the Steven Adams contract could be valuable. You know what? This feels right.

After talking this out, put me down for the Pelicans and the Grizzlies as Ainge’s mystery teams if those actually exist. Now we wait to see if the Knicks cave to the pressure a mystery team can cause. Basically, this story is going to consume us for the next month until camp opens.