Positive No.1 – Assists & Setting Up Teammates
One of the criticisms Donovan Mitchell received last season was that he took such a high percentage of his team’s shots and wasn’t exactly known for dishing the rock to his teammates. Some extreme critics went as far as to call him a ball hog.
Now, improving his distributing skills certainly needed to be an area of emphasis for him heading into this upcoming season, so in that regard some of the criticism was warranted. But in a lot of ways, the insults he received were wildly unjustified.
In so many occasions, Mitchell was the sole offensive option for his Jazz team that could create his own shot. Not only that, but several times his teammates couldn’t be relied on to make open shots. In other words, there were a number of instances where Mitchell would make the right play and find the open man, but the ball just wouldn’t go down. That probably has far more to do with his less than riveting assist average from a year ago of 4.2 per game than an actual lack of skill set.
Not only that, but 4.2 really isn’t that bad of a mark, especially when considering that Utah’s point guard, Ricky Rubio, notched just 6.1, which isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire either for his position. But I digress…
The fact of the matter, though, is that getting more comfortable and confident at making plays for others rather than just himself is something Jazz fans hoped to see out of Mitchell, and he’s delivered in a big way in FIBA play. He’s currently second on Team USA at assists per game with 4.4 which is only behind Kemba Walker‘s 6.0. In the latest contest against Brazil, Mitchell paced all players with a whopping seven assists
Many of those dimes throughout group play have been brilliant, whether they’ve been his fastball-esque lasers, dishes in the pick-and-roll to bigs like Myles Turner, or cross-court swings to Kemba Walker, Derrick White and others. Mitchell’s passing has looked much-improved, and he’s shown excellently that he can revert to a facilitating role when that’s what his team needs.
The Jazz will still need him to be a primary scorer when the NBA regular season gets underway, but if he can carry his FIBA passing game over with him, then his prolific teammates such as Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic should be able to feast in the scoring department alongside him as he draws in the opposing D then sets them up nicely.