donovan mitchell’s draft class was absolutely stacked
I wonder from time to time why Donovan Mitchell isn’t a consensus superstar yet. He’s a two-time All-Star with a shoe deal, a nickname and some wild highlights.
His draft class had other great guards who became the centerpieces of their teams — among others, Jayson Tatum and De’Aaron Fox. That 2017–18 draft was one of the best in recent years, so I wanted to take a look at these three players from a shotmaking perspective.
I used this awesome dataset from data.world and explored their shot charts, shot distances and shot types across their first three seasons.
where do they like to shoot from?
Here’s a breakdown of their shot distribution — what percent of their shot attempts come from where:
In terms of distance from the basket, this is how the three stack up. All three of them have a unique offensive arsenal; JT works noticeably less than the others in the paint while Fox shoots less threes.
It’d be interesting to know how they developed and adjusted their game in the years since they entered the league.
across the first three seasons
Here’s a shot chart of the three across their first three seasons:
Although minor, it looks like in their third season, Fox and JT seemed to have cleaned up their mid-range, shooting less from the 16–24 feet range. Mitchell on the other hand pretty much shoots from anywhere.
Here’s the same data presented differently. As we go further right, we move away from the basket. Taller bars represent more shots; the attempts are in grey and makes in black:
The spikes on the left are shots close to the rim and the spikes on the right are threes.
I like this more than the standard shot chart; it’s easier to visualise both their attempts and makes, without losing shooting distances. Of course, we lose the spatial information — Fox loves driving and shooting right, which we can only really see on a shot chart.
So it’s evident here too that Fox & JT’s deep midrange attempts dropped in their third season. It’s also clear that Mitchell just shot way more rock than the other two. Since joining the Jazz, he‘s never had a Jaylen Brown next to him, so it’s been upto him to take the shots whenever he’s on the floor.
they also like different shots
The differences in preferred shot range shows in types of shots they make too. Fox, who stays closer to the rim, takes more floaters than the other two (10% of all his shots) and more layups too (28%). JT on the other hand takes more step-backs (9% of all his shots) than the others. In their third season, while cleaning up the mid-range, Fox must have moved his deep midrange shots inside while JT moved his to outside the three-point line.
Mitchell on the other hand hasn’t changed his shot patterns since he joined the Jazz.
He also bricks a lot of three’s, since he shot way more but only made roughly the same number of them as JT did in their third season. He’s been stuck at around 35% whereas JT crossed 40% three-points made in their third season. So cleaning up his shot selection clearly worked for JT.
so basically
Unlike the other two, Mitchell hasn’t really been able to specialise in specific areas of his game, probably because the Jazz need him to be an all-in-one offensive solution.
This is what has, I presume, resulted in lower efficiency for him. If the ends justify the means, then I think he and the Jazz are on the right track. But I’d like to see him with another high-caliber guard to split the offensive load. Maybe then he could become really elite at a few key things. Maybe that’s what he needs to become a consensus superstar.
