Utah Jazz will keep guard Mitchell for 2019-20 campaign
Ex-NBA star Yao Ming attends basketball friendly in N. Korea
DONOVAN MITCHELL, who led all NBA rookies last season by scoring 20.5 points a game, will remain with the Utah Jazz through the 2019- 20 campaign, the club announced Thursday.
The Jazz exercised a club option to keep the 13th pick in last year’s NBA Draft for a third campaign just six days before Utah opens the 2018- 19 season Wednesday at Sacramento.
Mitchell, who won last season’s NBA Slam Dunk Contest, joined David Robinson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as the only rookies since 1959 to lead all scorers for a club that wins 45 games or more. Mitchell is the only guard in that iconic group.
The 22-year- old also set a rookie record with 187 3-pointers made in a season while earning a unanimous spot on the 2017-18 NBA All-Rookie First Team, although the Rookie of the Year award went to Australian Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Mitchell averaged 24.4 points over 11 playoff games, the first rookie to average more than 20 points in the post- season since Tim Duncan in 1998 as the Jazz reached the second round before losing to the Houston Rockets.
Mitchell scored 33 points to set a Utah one- game rookie playoff record, breaking Karl Malone’s 31-point mark from 1986, then surpassed himself with a 38-point effort in a series- clinching game six firstround performance against Oklahoma City. Pyongyang former NBA star Yao Ming attended a friendly basketball match between China and North Korea in Pyongyang on Thursday (Friday in Manila) amid warming ties between the neighbors.
The eight-time NBA all-star is visiting the North Korean capital this week as part of a high-level Chinese sports delegation.
Choe Ryong Hae -- one of the closest aides to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un -- and China’s sports minister Gou Zhongwen also watched the men’s friendlies at the Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong stadium.
Kim, an avowed NBA fan who met former Chicago Bull Dennis Rodman several times in Pyongyang, was not present.
After the match, ex-Houston Rockets centre Yao Ming posed for photos with both Chinese and North Korean players.
Relations between Pyongyang and Bei- jing have gone through a rough patch in recent years, with China backing United Nations sanctions to punish its Cold War- era ally for its nuclear activities.
But ties have recently improved as Kim met President Xi Jinping in China three times this year.
While the Chinese leader has yet to return the favour with his own visit to Pyongyang, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said this week that Xi is expected to visit the North “soon”.
Yao Ming, at 2.29 metres (7 foot 6), was one of the tallest players in the NBA and became a global ambassador for the sport during his eight NBA seasons.
He continued promoting the game after he was forced into retirement by repeated foot injuries and is now the head of the Chinese Basketball Association.