What does Donovan Mitchell's big payday mean for Cleveland's future?

Charania reported Tuesday that “Mitchell also would embrace the Cavaliers reuniting with LeBron James if James makes the decision to sign with Cleveland, according to sources.” That wait for that decision — lowercase-D; the proper noun still has a pretty sour connotation in Northeast Ohio, all these years later — might stretch “into next week at the very least,” as Marc Stein and Jake Fischer reported Tuesday. Or into August, as James hinted during a “Mind the Game” episode back in May. Or it might come any minute now, with longtime LeBron chronicler Brian Windhorst saying he believes James already knows what he wants to do.

While the rest of the basketball-watching world yet again waits on LeBron, the Cavs acted to continue one of the best stretches of basketball they’ve ever had without him, by committing to one of the brightest stars they’ve ever had. They did it because they’ve learned a couple of fundamental truths, and learned them the hard way: The only thing worse than being a perennial playoff team that can’t quite win the big one is being horrendous for years at a time, and the only thing worse than paying top-dollar prices for a great-but-perhaps-not-transcendent player is not having any great players at all.