2021 NBA Draft: 3 guards the Washington Wizards could draft at #15
By Ethan Smith
No. 2 – Davion Mitchell
Nobody saw their draft stock rocket higher during the 2021 March Madness tournament than Baylor’s Davion Mitchell. A championship run will do that. But so will a game like Mitchell’s.
Mitchell is a hard-nosed point guard that defends at a high level and takes care of the ball. Mitchell had no more than three turnovers in any of the NCAA tournament games, including a stellar 11 assist-0 turnover game in Baylor’s Final Four win over Houston. That’s a far cry from the Wizards’ current point guard situation. Westbrook led the league in turnovers per game by a whole 0.5 turnovers.
After one season at Auburn, Mitchell transferred to Baylor, where he eventually excelled after redshirting his first season with the Bears. Mitchell was named to the All-Big 12 team and Big 12 All-Defense team in each of his two seasons with Baylor. His breakout final season earned him a Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year award and an All-NCAA Tournament team selection, too.
Mitchell’s resume is impressive, but there’s a question of whether his final collegiate season was a fluke or the real things. Mitchell’s offensive game took a huge leap last season and recorded career-highs in points per game (14.0), field-goal percentage (56.5), and three-point percentage (44.7) while playing more minutes than ever, attempting more shots than ever, and posting a higher usage rate than ever. That’s not easy to do, so credit to Mitchell. But the level of play we saw in the tournament does not have seasons worth of precedence. It all depends on which Mitchell the Wizards will get.