In a battle of second-year stars, Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz look to steal the crown from De’Aaron Fox and the Sacramento Kings.
So, normally when I dig into a game preview for the Utah Jazz, I do a major deep dive on the team’s opponent. I look at the numbers, I look at the history and the trends, I look at the situations on the bench, in the front office and in the owner’s box. At the least, I try to give you something beyond the tip time and a prediction.
Tonight, I’m not as concerned about that, because tonight is all about Donovan Mitchell vs. De’Aaron Fox which, if you’re a hardcore hoop-head, has got to be one of the more intriguing one-on-one match-ups between young stars in the Association.
Sure, I could tell you that the Jazz have won nine of their last 11 games against the Kings. Or that the Kings play at the third fastest tempo in the league. Or even that Rudy Gobert averages 14 points, 15 boards and two swats per game in head-to-head battles with Willie Cauley-Stein. But, in the end, the backcourt battle is on the marquee and rightfully so.
A year ago, Mitchell leapfrogged Fox in a big, bad way with his historically good rookie season. This year, though, the discrepancy between the two has shrunk considerably.
In March, ESPN conducted a poll of 18 coaches and executives from around the NBA with the following question: which second-year star would you build a team around?
As one might expect, Mitchell came in second to Ben Simmons by a narrow margin — he logged 48 voter points to Simmons’ 55. However, Fox wasn’t far behind; he picked up 34 points to come in right behind Jayson Tatum at third and six of the people polled actually picked him as either their first or second choice.
They’re not wrong, either.
For most of the year, the Kings were surprisingly a big part of the playoff race and Fox’s efforts guided the missile. On the season, he’s averaging 17 points, seven dimes and nearly two steals per contest and has improved his effective field goal percentage by five points over his rookie year.
As a result, Sacramento is 6.1 points per 100 possessions better when the point guard is on the floor.
Meanwhile, Mitchell has been on a tear of late. Over his last eight games, the 2018 ROY runner-up is putting up a 24-5-4 line, which is pretty close to his stats for the year, except for the fact that he’s also shooting 48 percent from the floor and over 51 percent from distance .
During the same stretch, he also has a D-rating of just 100.5 and a net rating approaching 16.
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So things have clearly been going well for Utah’s alpha dog, but he’s in for a tough one against the speed and athleticism of Fox. Sure, there are still playoff seeding ramifications for the Jazz with every game, but the battle between the two guards will nonetheless provide the game’s greatest entertainment value.
I expect Fox and the Kings will put up a good fight but, in the end, look for Mitchell and the Jazz to prevail.
PREDICTION: Jazz win 118-108.
Tip-off between the Jazz and Kings is at 7 PM MT. Join us in the comment thread below for our live game discussion,