Davion Mitchell was March's breakout star
Davion Mitchell was March's breakout star
The next step? Being a top ten pick.
No one did more to help his standing in the eyes of NBA decision makers over the course of the last three weeks of the college basketball season than Baylor point guard Davion Mitchell.
If NBA draft stock were traded publicly, Davion would be GameStop. He went from being a guy that draftniks and the people with NBA in their twitter handle loved to being someone that may legitimately be the best prospect in this draft outside of those top five guys1.
The evolution for him has been fascinating. We entered the season believing that Jared Butler was Baylor’s best player and Mark Vital was Baylor’s best defender. Both of those guys were as good as advertised all season long, but the reason that Baylor won the title — the reason that they were a COVID pause from being discussed as one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport and entering March undefeated — was because of Davion.
By the time the conference tournament rolled around, it was clear: Davion was Baylor’s best defender. By the time we reached the Final Four, it was clear that Davion was not only Baylor’s best point guard and passer, but he was also their best shooter, their emotional leader and the guy that NBA teams absolutely had to pay attention to.
We’ll get to the offensive stuff in a minute, but for Davion, it all starts on the defensive side of the ball. I don’t say this lightly: He may very well be the best on-ball defender that I have ever seen in the collegiate ranks. The ability that he has to climb up into a ball-handler and move his feet is unmatched by anyone, but what’s most impressive about him is his ability to do it without using his hands. Speaking of his hands, you better not be loose with your handle, because the only thing quicker than Davion’s feet are his hands. He’ll snatch the rock if you’re not careful.
But back to the point, Davion’s feet don’t slide as much as they glide. It never looks like he’s working hard on that end, but he’s always in the right spot and he’s never getting beaten off the bounce. Where we really see this impact his game is with his ability to draw offensive fouls. No one, and I mean no one, is better at beating a ball-handler to a spot, getting his chest in front and going flying when a shoulder or an elbow makes contact. He may not draw as many whistles in a league where officials don’t get bonuses based on the number of charges they call, but that doesn’t change the fact that it will take something special to beat him off the bounce.
This will translate.
As will Davion’s burst.
I cannot remember ever seeing a player that has the first step that Davion does. He can go from a standstill to top speed in the time that it takes to get from the three-point to the rim, which is something that will impact the game more and more as he moves up levels and starts to play with more space, and I believe that his success this season is evidence of that. Last year, Baylor’s best lineups skewed towards having two big men on the floor, typically Freddie Gillispie and Mark Vital. Neither of those two were worth guarding more than eight feet away from the rim, which clogged the paint.
This season, Baylor’s best lineups had four guards on the floor that all shot better that 40 percent from three. As a result, the offense Scott Drew typically ran featured a high-ball screen with three shooters around the perimeter, something straight out of the NBA playbook. With this kind of space … :
… Mitchell is unguardable.
Because in 2021, he’s so much more than just a slasher with the athleticism to get a paint touch.
Let’s start with the passing, because Davion has a really impressive ability to not only read a defense but to find creative ways to get the ball where it needs to be. He’s become very good at hitting the weak-side corner with skip passes when a tagger ventures a little too far off of his man in help. He can make the bullet pass off a live dribble going to his right hand. He can find the weak-side shooter going to his left, even if it takes a little extra effort to get it there. What might be the most impressive part of his game, however, is his ability to get a pass to a rolling big, whether it’s hitting one of his bouncy centers for a lob at the top of the square or finding a way to make a highlight reel pocket pass through traffic.
These are all passes that NBA lead guards need to be able to make, and Davion can make all of them.
But what has really changed with him in the last year, the real reason why he’s now considered a top ten pick when he’s just a year removed from barely being on the NBA’s radar is the shooting. As a high schooler, he was not a threat from beyond the arc. As a freshman at Auburn, he shot just 28 percent from three. Last season at Baylor, he shot just 32 percent from three. This season he shot 45 percent from three while shooting nearly five attempts per game.
And there’s more than one way for him to hit a jumper.
Mitchell shot 43.5 percent on catch-and-shoot jumpers, averaging 1.306 points-per-possession, good for the 91st percentile nationally, according to Synergy. He shot 43.6 percent on off-the-dribble jumpers, averaging 1.139 PPP, which was good for the 95th percentile nationally. Not only is he a knockdown shooter and en elite floor-spacer, but he really understands how to use the threat of his drive to create clean looks for himself. He’s also really good at shooting threes off of hang dribbles, and he’s terrific at being able to create space for himself with step-backs and crossovers. There are shades of both Donovan Mitchell and Kemba Walker in his game, and when you pair that with a guy that can be a Patrick Beverly-level pest on the defensive end of the floor, I don’t care that he’s already 22 years old. There’s a ceiling there.
But for my money, the thing that makes Davion so appealing as a prospect is that he has this “f- you” attitude and competitiveness about him. Mark Vital was generally credited with being the vocal leader on this year’s Baylor roster, and Jared Butler was definitely the face of the program, the All-American and leading scorer that was so easy to love.
It was Mitchell, however, that made them tick. The Bears had this habit of going on surges where they just enveloped you defensively, where they made it impossible for you to run offense, where they would turn a series of turnovers into layups and open threes at the other end of the floor. We saw this at the start of the national title game. We saw this in the second half of the Sweet 16 games against Villanova. We saw it down the stretch of the first half of the Final Four game against Houston.
The instigator for those runs, the guy that sparked them all season long, was Davion Mitchell.
If you’re stuck in a seven-game Playoff series, that is precisely the kind of competitor you want on your roster.
And when you add in the fact that he has about a half-dozen NBA skills, I cannot fathom allowing him to drop out of the top eight picks in this year’s draft.
For those that are just now getting into the NBA draft discussion, there is a very clear-cut top five in this year’s draft — Cade Cunningham, Jalen Suggs, Evan Mobley, Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga — who are all Tier 1 prospects.