Archive

Tag Archives: Donovan Mitchell

A Well-Trained Crew

By
November 15, 2024
Basketball, NBA, Sports
Leave a comment

While we aren’t yet twenty games into the NBA season, the generally-accepted sample size for knowing what a team looks like and, more importantly, what it’s about, some useful-enough things have happened that we can start to posit theories: the post-championship Celtics remain dominant; neither of the Knicks nor Timberwolves is necessarily better nor worse than before That KAT Trade; the Phoenix Suns maybe, possibly have it figured out; and, perhaps most noticeably to the average viewer, everybody just wants to jack threes.

In the age of players like Kevin Durant and Victor Wembanyama, arborescent men who can reliably shoot threes, spacing has become even more paramount than when Steph Curry initially began running rampant from 22+ feet. Even a player like Brook Lopez, who didn’t hit a three until his seventh season in the NBA, has been crucial for keeping defenders honest, allowing Bucks teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo to take advantage of the space Lopez’s outward movement affords him.

Read More

Something’s Heating Up!

By
April 28, 2023
America, Basketball, NBA, Sports
1 Comment

This past Christmas, I was in Oklahoma with my oldest, not older, brother, taking in several of the NBA games that were on TV. They were there at my request, but several of our fellow patrons got into it; suffice to say, we identified a Kobe Guy. Two days later we would be at Paycom watching a Thunder-Spurs game that you’ve already forgotten; I doubt we ever will.

For what ended up being my family’s ad hoc Christmas celebration three months later, we descended upon South Carolina, my parents once again hosting a St. Patrick’s Day party featuring a lot of people I don’t know that well. One of them, a New Jersey transplant and lapsed Knicks fan, unfortunately found herself in a conversation with me, all but yelling at her about Jalen Brunson. 

Read More

(Approximately) 30 Thoughts On 30 NBA Teams, 2022-’23 Edition

By
October 18, 2022
Basketball, NBA, Sports
1 Comment

Not so fast – To focus on the “sudden” rush to the bottom for Victor Wembanyama and, especially after their recent matchup on national TV, Scoot Henderson is to overlook what lies directly before us this NBA season. In what was bound to be a year of questions surrounding contenders, we’ve returned to another slate full of them. 

In any case, we return, steeled to run directly into the fire. Who knows what awaits this caravan? New stats, new players, a continuous flow of publicly-available scandals: it isn’t all here, but we’ll make do. Forget STOCKS, or AST:TO ratio. The new way to identify player efficacy is assists+steals+blocks divided by/turnovers. Get used to it, identify your new Point Gawd, and get ready for tip-off.

Read More

What Fruits They Bear

By
September 4, 2020
Basketball, NBA
Leave a comment
Jamal Murray, relatable (Courtesy ESPN)

On Tuesday night, we received the first-ever NBA Game 7 that occurred in the month of September. The series had been a showcase for two of the league’s premier young teams, the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz, and specifically for those teams’ respective young guards, Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell.

Two teams, of the same juggernaut division in the same juggernaut conference, sporting a guard apiece of the modern vintage, but with a distinctly timeless flair: they are Murray and Mitchell, players who would’ve been wildly successful in any era of the NBA but are coming into their own now, in an exceedingly strange 2020. This first round series, an instant and all-time classic, certainly had the flavor of, if not necessarily “kingmaking,” then a long-awaited debutant ball. Each of them revealed parts of themselves and their respective games that are almost certain to shock and amaze for years to come.

So, as with everything showing any kind of promise under the microscope of popular opinion, we ask: Where do they go now?

Read More