It’d be boring if every player on every team was good, all the time. Metronomic is consistency great for winning basketball games or whatever, but over the course of an 82-game grind, no one wants total predictability. We need complex characters to bring the season to life; guys who one night leave you exasperated only to bring you right back on board the next.
Chris Boucher has long occupied this role for the Raptors. The count on the amount of times I’ve been in then out then in again on Boucher since 2018 is into the hundreds by now. For every wonky closeout or wack bit of shot selection there’s a random heater or stuffed three-point attempt that balances out the befuddlement. Boucher maybe hasn’t beefed up the Raptors’ win total much in seven years with the team, but he’s absolutely enriched the viewing experience through times both bright and dark, last night’s first half outburst (13 points, three triples) being the latest example.
I’m starting to grow a similar appreciation for Davion Mitchell. I’ll admit, coming into the year I did not have high hopes for this particular second draft flier. Mitchell never really popped off the screen for me as a member of some fun Kings teams that I watched a ton of, and his sketchy three-point stroke from the guard position had me dubious of the kind of impact he could have on a team with decidedly less space than he’d been surrounded by in his first NBA home. I was expecting to not enjoy the Mitchell experience in Toronto, and his first few games of the year didn’t help dispel those preconceptions.
I’m coming around, though. Being a sucker for a good revenge game, I think it really clicked in for me on Thursday night: Davion Mitchell drives me nuts, but in a way that I’m very much into.
What the hell is the deal with Mitchell’s compulsion to make every pass a laser beam? Kicks to the corner, standard perimeter swings, interior dump-offs to guys standing three feet away: if there’s a basic pass to be thrown, he’s putting Gerrit Cole levels of mustard on it. And like baseball’s most powerful pitchers, Mitchell’s control can be finicky. His teammates always gotta be ready to pick balls out of the dirt.
It’s the kind of dumbfounding yet kinda charming tick you can live with on nights where Mitchell is marauding in transition, harassing opposing lead guards, and finding ways to slice into the defense in spite of his minimal shooting threat like he did in his return to Sacramento. You know at the core, Mitchell’s darts are a symptom of being a try-hard, the most noble of foibles.
20 points, six assists, 8/11 shooting, and a couple of threes on three tries; he was the best player on the floor for the Raptors in their seventh loss of the year. Much like Boucher, a couple distance shots dropping drastically levels Mitchell’s effectiveness up.
In my urge to critique Mitchell’s iffy pick-and-roll craft, or the moments where his turbo jets out pace his ability to make sound decisions, I need to remind myself he’s currently doing a job he was not cast for. It’s OK that he’s an imperfect starting point guard, because he’s not a starting point guard. Once Immanuel Quickley returns — reportedly as soon as this weekend now that he’s been cleared for contact — Mitchell will take up the backup guard role he’s proven he can probably handle perfectly well. He’ll surely do maddening stuff, even in a job more befitting of his talents, but that’s OK. There’s room for guys who toe the line between awesome and infuriating. Unique player idiosyncrasies give basketball its colour. Without the Davion Mitchells of the world, you might as well just sim to the final buzzer.
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Today on the podcast I dig into the Raptors’ 122-107 loss to the Kings, what went wrong in the 4th quarter, Mitchell’s best night as a Raptor and, sigh, more bad injury luck. Enjoy the show!
