NBA: 5 biggest sleepers to win the Rookie of the Year award in 2017-18
By Dillon Dente
The average sleeper – AKA “The REM cycle” – Donovan Mitchell
The cat is somewhat out of the bag on this sleeper, especially after his Summer League campaign where he emphatically arrived on the scene with some staggering numbers. The Jazz played in both the Salt Lake City and Las Vegas Summer Leagues, and Mitchell played five games total between the two cities.
In his two games in Salt Lake City, Mitchell averaged a ridiculous 28 points and six steals per game. He cooled down a bit in Las Vegas, but his overall averages are still indicative of a player dangerous enough to swoop in and win Rookie of the Year. Factoring in a monster game against Memphis where Mitchell scored 37 points to go with eight steals, Mitchell concluded his Summer League with 20.4 PPG, 2.6 APG, 2.5 RPG, and 4.4. SPG over five games, per Real GM.
Mitchell has never been a huge facilitator, and his outside shot is still very suspect, shooting only 31 percent in Summer League from 3. Mitchell was only average from deep throughout 2016-17 season at Louisville, and with the added NBA distance, he figures to at least experience a bit of a learning curve. While steals and defense will help make Mitchell a potential game-altering player, they likely won’t be significant enough to make him a favorite for ROY.
One final obstacle in Mitchell’s way might be the off-season signing of point guard Ricky Rubio. Mitchell is in that hard-to-place ‘tweener category of combo guards. Mitchell is an almost prototypical point guard defender at 6-foot-3 with an extremely advantageous 6-foot-10 wingspan. That being said, if Rodney Hood, Ricky Rubio, and Dante Exum all stay healthy, finding enough minutes for Mitchell to make his case might be tough. I do think that Mitchell will be in the rotation, and I even think he’ll get a couple starts.
As teams go small, throwing Mitchell out there with Rubio to help defend guys like Westbrook or Curry might boost his opportunities, but will it be enough? Mitchell is a tough pick here if the Utah back court is mostly healthy, and if Mitchell were to sneak into heavy rotation minutes, NBA defenses will likely find a way to slow down a 6-foot-3 guard who doesn’t pick up many assists or threaten from the outside. Regardless of how things look on paper though, Mitchell is extremely talented.
Should Mitchell’s name come up late in the season during Rookie of the year discussions, pretty much everything he’s shown fans to this point would scream “I told ya so.”