OUT OF THIS WORLD!
LOS ANGELES — The point guard legends of New York City — the Stephon Marburys and the Kenny Andersons — were all better than Donovan Mitchell in high school and at the playground.
As Mitchell himself acknowledged Friday about his days on a Manhattan-based AAU squad, The City, “I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t dribble — I was just a dunker. “I played defense and dunked. That’s it.” But that changed not long before he got into the NBA, rapidly and spectacularly. Now a frontrunner for Rookie of the Year, he has consistently exhibited the capabilities to achieve what most of those NYC playground legends couldn’t: NBA superstardom. And he also could’ve been a Knick. “There was definitely a part of me that (wanted to be drafted by the Knicks),” Mitchell said. “Obviously, who wouldn’t want to play back home where they grew up?”
Mitchell, 21, made sure to qualify that statement with gushing for his current franchise, the Jazz, and why not? Even in one of the NBA’s smallest markets, he has already elicited mainstream attention while averaging nearly 20 points and carrying the hottest team in the NBA. His media table Friday was more crowded than any of his Rising Stars Challenge teammates, dwarfing the presence surrounding Frank Ntilikina.
Much of it has to do with Mitchell’s style, “that New York swagger,” he called it. He’s explosive on the court and engaging in front of a microphone. He is a star of the All-Star weekend’s undercard, both a starter in Friday night’s Rising Stars Challenge and a participant in Saturday’s Slam Dunk contest.
Still, 12 teams passed over Mitchell in the draft, including seven that picked guards. Mitchell, who played two years under Rick Pitino at Louisville, made the Knicks’ short list and was called in for a last-minute workout the day before the draft.
But Phil Jackson and Steve Mills settled on Ntilikina, who has proven less NBAready, and the Knicks missed out on a hometown budding star. Mitchell said his confidence transformed after working out in the offseason with Chris Paul and Paul George, two All-Stars who shared their optimism for the rookie’s potential.
“They really changed my mind in a 25-, 30-minute conversation,” Mitchell said. “Because if these two future Hall of Famers feel this way, why shouldn’t I feel that way about myself? It really just triggered that thought and I started believing in myself.”
Mitchell went to high school in Greenwich, Conn., but was born in Elmsford — just a few miles from the Knicks practice facility — and played his AAU ball in Manhattan. His first dunk was in Harlem on a “slanted court,” he said, which allowed him to elevate just high enough.
His father, Donovan Sr., is a former minor-league baseball player, who still works for the Mets as the director of player relations. Mitchell Jr. was also a baseball standout before breaking his wrist in high school.
“At that point, I just developed more of a hunger for basketball than I did for baseball,” he said. “I wanted to be out there with my guys (in AAU) and I came back in a shorter time than expected and I was just ready to play basketball as opposed to baseball.”
He hasn’t stopped playing and improving, riding that wave to All-Star weekend and perhaps superstardom. It would’ve been cool to see that unfold at Madison Square Garden.
“I don’t think of it like, ‘Man, what if I had 40 in the Garden?’ I don’t really think of it like that,” he said. “I think it’s more like there was a time during the draft process, where it was like, ‘Man, it would be cool to play in Garden, play in New York.’ But I don’t really reflect on what I could’ve been.”
Hypotheticals are a lot easier to dismiss these days for Mitchell. He’s in a great place. The Knicks are still waiting for their sunshine.
The World dominated the U.S. in the Rising Stars Challenge, but Frank Ntilikina was mostly a bystander in a big victory for the metric system, 155-124.
Ntilikina remained passive even in the All-Star game flow while others were freestyling and dunking. He finished with six points on six shots with five assists.
Boston’s Jaylen Brown led all scorers with 35 points.
The quarters were only 10 minutes