Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell had a solid outing in Team USA’s scrimmage against Australia despite some minor efficiency concerns.
Although the Utah Jazz regular season won’t get underway until near the end of October, fans of the Salt Lake City squad can get a good basketball fix by watching Team USA as it gears up for the FIBA Basketball World Cup. That’s largely due to the fact that the team’s starting shooting guard is none other than the beloved Donovan Mitchell.
As exciting as Utah’s offseason additions were, such as Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic, Jazz fans remain well aware that their ultimate ceiling depends largely on Mitchell’s growth and improvement. Mitchell showed massive strides in the latter half of year two as a pro, and is expected to really take a leap in his third season.
Although comparisons to NBA legends are often undue and somewhat unfair, Mitchell has long been compared to the great Dwyane Wade. He has a ways to go yet to match that level of competency, but Wade burst onto the scene in his third season and Mitchell will aim to follow suit during the 2019-20 campaign.
With that as a backdrop, watching Mitchell play in summer international play has been a nice measuring stick and barometer for Jazz fans to see how he’s doing. And while playing alongside other young stars with an unfamiliar group is far different than what it will be like once Mitchell is back in the comfortable system of the Utah Jazz, he’s shown some nice moments thus far.
He’s received praise from the likes of Gregg Popovich and other Team USA execs, and had standout moments in both the Blue & White Scrimmage and the scrimmage against Spain last week. Most recently, in Thursday’s pre-dawn hours locally and in the evening in Australia, Donovan Mitchell and Team USA took on the Boomers in the land down under. Despite an imperfect box score, Mitchell was once again more impressive than many are giving him credit for.
Donovan finished the night with 13 points, the third most on the team behind Kemba Walker (23) and Myles Turner (15) to go along with three assists, two steals and an awesome block (see below). However, Mitchell’s 13 points came on just 6-of-15 shooting from the field and 1-of-5 shooting from the perimeter. He also turned it over four times.
https://twitter.com/ESPNNBA/status/1164531318367166464
Therefore, a quick perusal of the box score could lead some to claim that Mitchell once again fell into his far too common ways of inefficiency and poor decision making.
But even by ignoring the fact that this was just one game, which is an entirely too small sample size to get in a tizzy over, claiming that Mitchell had anything other than an awesome outing would be inaccurate. Donovan played excellent defense for the entirety of the game, principally in the third quarter where he shut down Patty Mills and quite literally transformed the game.
The Aussies kept it close for much of the early part of the contest, trailing by just one point heading into halftime. But, largely due to Mitchell’s herculean efforts on defense following the break, Team USA went on a 32-18 tear in the third period en route to a 102-86 victory. Not only that, but Mitchell was a plus-24 on the night, trailing only Myles Turner’s mark of plus-26 for Team USA.
And while many were criticizing the number of mid-range shots that Mitchell took, several of them were good looks within the offense where his jumper looked smooth and controlled. Many yielded a positive result as well. All told, Mitchell went a solid 5-of-10 from two-point range. If anything, his lackluster three-point shooting of 20 percent (1-of-5) is what dragged him down.
That said, had Mitchell made just one more of those threes, he would have gone 40 percent on the night. Would that then have transformed his game from a bad one into a good one for box score scanners?
My point is that Donovan’s impact went well beyond the percentages. Would it be nice to see him continue to up his efficiency? Of course it would! But condemning him based off of one game isn’t a wise reaction, especially when he did far more than what the surface numbers indicate.
For example, fellow Jazzman and Australia native Joe Ingles went just 2-of-6 from the field and 1-of-4 from deep, but no one is panicking about his shot. The same view should be taken with Donovan, especially when, minus the missed threes, he had an exceptional game and was an absolute difference maker for Team USA.
Mitchell’s commitment to defense has been in full display thus far during the summer. If he can keep that up, it will indicate a major improvement for him and his Jazz team moving forward. If he from there continues to elevate his offensive game – something he should be primed to do with such a complimenting cast of Mike Conley, Bojan Bogdanovic and Rudy Gobert – he’ll find himself nearing the echelons of superstar status.
I think his passing has been at a different level this summer. Defense was really good too.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) August 22, 2019
While some fans may make the mistake of wanting to see near perfection out of Mitchell right away, I, for one, am excited by what he’s showing in offseason play thus far. Are there things he needs to work on? Absolutely! No doubt about it! But his performance overall this summer and especially on Thursday morning/night was encouraging in just about every way.
Mitchell has emerged as a leader for his Team USA squad. He’s becoming a force on defense. He’s ratcheting up the intensity and making good plays offensively. In short, he’s making significant progress. And with so much time between now and the 2020 NBA Playoffs, which is when he’ll really need to shine, that’s all you can ask for right now.
Donovan has improved during the course of each of his seasons with the Jazz. If what we’re seeing in international play is his starting point for 2019-20, we’re in for an exciting ride throughout the upcoming season.
Team USA is back in action at 10:00 PM MT on Friday in a second scrimmage against Australia that will be televised on NBA TV.