Sandman822
Well-Known Member
Wade can't shoot as much as Mitchell couldn't shoot for most of this season prior to 2019. They're both streaky, difference being that Wade can get himself to the line too, and there was far less of an emphasis on the 3pt shot back in Wade's prime so now when he's shooting more he's around the same % as Mitchell for the season. I'm not sure you could unequivocally say that Mitchell's handle is better than Wade's as while Wade in his solo perimeter star days had way more TOs per 100 than Mitchell (5 - 6 per 100 for Wade vs about 4 for Mitchell), the numbers end up being similar when Wade played as a secondary ball handler with LeBron, which seems like a fairer comparison as Rubio is the primary ball handler for the Jazz until crunch time in the 4th.
I also don't buy that Mitchell has to play PG just because he's smaller. He's got basically the same wingspan as Wade even though he's shorter, and while Wade is much better taking off on one foot Mitchell is better than Wade as a two foot athlete. Both are fluid with their movements, Wade is more likely to take contact and finish through it while Mitchell is more likely to try and acrobatically get a shot off around defenders. In the modern NBA you can hide smaller players on defense by putting them on shooters on the wings and letting a bigger defender take the primary ball handler. Saying Mitchell should play PG because he's smaller is kinda like the inverse of Ben Simmons, as Simmons is clearly a classical type PG who literally can't shoot yet he has the size of a PF or C. You don't see the Sixers force Simmons to play PF just because he's bigger, you play him as your PG because that's where you maximise his strengths and then cross match defensively if you need him to guard bigger guys. You maximise Donovan Mitchell's strengths by allowing him to be a scoring guard who can secondary playmake, and you're more likely to get that out of him in Snyder's system at SG rather than at PG long term.
Also it was two games ago where he had a 1 assist/7 turnover game against Milwaukee. He's had an ast:to ratio of 1.42 over his last 3 games since he's been asked to play the PG which isn't great (Rubio's is 2.02 and Exum's is 2.33 for comparison). He's had stretches earlier in the season where he has had similar high USG rates while putting up much lesser performances with his poor shooting. 2019 Mitchell is an All Star level guy but it's been like 5 or 6 games, and not all of those games have been at PG.
I hope it doesn't happen but if Mitchell has a game at PG where he struggles I would be very interested to see how Jazzfanz reacts to his play, as if I'm being honest I didn't really like what I saw from Mitchell as a PG in the 3rd quarter. He played it a lot like he had done previously in his limited stints at PG before this recent stretch, and the only difference and reason why no one cared tonight (except for Cy I think who picked up on this too) was he was hitting the shots that he was missing in November/December and was keeping the Jazz' lead where it needed to be. He wasn't really doing anything to make his teammates better he was simply carrying them with his scoring, which is why I think his best position is still at SG who can play some PG at times and not full time at PG going forward.
He could figure all this out and make me look dumb as hell in a year or two tho.
