Where do you rank Donovan Mitchell?

[Phoenix]

He's not up with guys that do more than just score the basketball

I know your opinion of Donovan Mitchell. It's not worth the effort to contest anything you say where he's concerned.

[Xiao Yao You]

I know your opinion of Donovan Mitchell. It's not worth the effort to contest anything you say where he's concerned.

My opinion of him is the same as others that don't compete defensively or involve their teammates

[Phoenix]

My opinion of him is the same as others that don't compete defensively or involve their teammates

Good for you.

[NBAGOAT]

Top 10, really shown this stretch he’s a great floor raiser. He had offensive talent supporting him in Utah, most of this stretch was allen and role shooters playing around him. Garland has been pretty mediocre.

Best stats and defense of his career. He’s in 87 percentile on defense by epm this year and most cavs fans have said he’s really improved there

[RRR3]

Top 10, really shown this stretch he’s a great floor raiser. He had offensive talent supporting him in Utah, most of this stretch was allen and role shooters playing around him. Garland has been pretty mediocre.

Best stats and defense of his career. He’s in 87 percentile on defense by epm this year and most cavs fans have said he’s really improved there

Oh shit I misread the EPM column, he is doing that well in defense. That gives him a real case for top 10 if it's at all accurate. Btw, why does the EPM site always have incorrect TS% data? I generally find EPM accurate to what I see watching games (more than other stats I've seen), but this is baffling.

[Xiao Yao You]

Top 10, really shown this stretch he’s a great floor raiser. He had offensive talent supporting him in Utah, most of this stretch was allen and role shooters playing around him. Garland has been pretty mediocre.

Best stats and defense of his career. He’s in 87 percentile on defense by epm this year and most cavs fans have said he’s really improved there

he's obviously got the physical tools to play D. Actually trying helps though. Got a lot more talent around him in Cleveland and i assume better coaching

[RRR3]

He's in the tier with Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Kyrie, Dame and Booker. Better on some nights, worse on others.

I'd put Kyrie lower than the rest of those guys. Not based off ability, but something about him just makes teams underperform. I guess his general insanity perhaps. In a vacuum he's a fairly similar player to Mitchell and Booker though, although I think worse at defense.

[Xiao Yao You]

can't quit me!

[Phoenix]

I'd put Kyrie lower than the rest of those guys. Not based off ability, but something about him just makes teams underperform. I guess his general insanity perhaps. In a vacuum he's a fairly similar player to Mitchell and Booker though, although I think worse at defense.

I mean if I had to rank those guys he would probably be last. But I kind of steer clear of getting too caught up in rankings per se. I know what you mean about his actual effect on winning, over his career it doesn't quite align with his talent.

[RRR3]

I mean if I had to rank those guys he would probably be last. But I kind of steer clear of getting too caught up in rankings per se. I know what you mean about his actual effect on winning, over his career it doesn't quite align with his talent.

There has to be something intangible there, because ability wise he's similar to many guys who don't have that issue.

[BarberSchool]

I give him a solid “that bwoy good”, but no higher.

[Kblaze8855]

Umm, I watched him play and he performed exactly as I described when he left Utah, and it was a contributing factor to their result. Not the only factor, but he was once again limited as a playmaker beyond seeking his own shot, and that was part of why they were upset by the lower seeded Knicks. The Cavs looked like the less organized, less competent offense, and much of that owed to Mitchell being the primary playmaker. It was the same situation we saw in Utah. He doesnt appear to adjust to playoff defenses well, except to just keep shooting, even when thats what the opponent wants. He’ll get his points but they arent productive points in terms of building a strategy off of. His basketball instincts are not strong for a first option. That is a fact.

So yes, him once again playing like the guy I described confirmed that he is the guy I described.

I never said he cant or wont be on a winning team in any capacity. I said his skillset relative to the role he played last year was a factor in why they lost last year. And that is a fact.

It’s just a reworded version of the same victory lap taken by every hater across team sports for 50 years. The formula is easy.

You watch or hear about a player.

You find faults(everyone has them).

You predict they fail due to the faults.

95% of people will fail in a given season and plenty of the best will fail every season.

You say The failure proves you right.

it really doesn’t even matter who the subject is. They are going to have a fault or two. You could be talking about Bill Russell not being a go to scorer. Bird occasionally shaky shot selection, or defense versus quickness. You could be talking about Jordan not being a consistent outside shooter, and occasionally keeping his role players from getting all the touches they want.

Doesn’t matter who. You can say whatever fault you find is an issue and take their inevitable defeat as proof.

in reality, all that defeat means is that everybody is going to be defeated, and most of them are going to be defeated almost all the time. People don’t stop when the defeat takes longer than they said it would. They just raise the standard. We could be talking about people going from LeBron won’t last three years in the league because he can’t shoot which was said on here in 2003 to people saying well he isn’t as good as Jordan and Kareem because blah blah blah. We could be talking about people saying Lamar Jackson literally cannot play the quarterback position, and should be made a running back , and now he’s a two-time MVP and the standard is well…he has not been to the Super Bowl yet.

It doesn’t really matter what happens once the path is started down. Failure makes the criticism valid and success merely changes what failure is so it can always apply. Win 3 times…you failed to win 4. Therefore I was right. _____ came back to bite him. Cost his team.

as I hope you can tell this is an entirely about you. I’ve just been watching this shit on the Internet for well over 20 years and it just gets so old. It’s the same thing over and over again.

people not being perfect doesn’t make the people saying they aren’t perfect right whenever they fail. They aren’t perfect because nobody is. The failure is coming no matter what.

The main issue I have with such things is with people who want to act like one player is making everything happen, and then spaz on their teammates when the inevitable failure occurs. The failure is coming for everyone. The standards will be adjusted to make whoever the target is a failure to some degree. It’s funny when some idiot is giving total credit to someone who is supposedly gonna prevent it and then bending over backwards to give them no blame when they don’t…..

But even in that there is a little of both sides to see.

I think my problem is less with your particular comment and more with the definitive nature of takes, and what results mean to their validity.

Really the easiest thing to do is just call out the faults of everybody and take 29 victory laps at the end of the year and take solace in the fact that the one guy you can’t take the victory lap on is probably gonna lose 13 times before he retires.

[FultzNationRISE]

I remember hearing people directly involved in the Bulls saying "They got over the hump once Michael learned x" or "started trusting y" etc.

Nobody wins or loses on their own, but when you observe a guy's flaws and you see them specifically born out in a series and they lose in an upset as the home courted seed (in Mitchell's case)... I think it's fair to call that player a factor in the loss.

I'm not just saying I'm right 'because they lost.' I'm saying that what I said about his playoff effectiveness at the time of the trade, is exactly what happened again on the court in his first Cleveland playoff, and I saw it with my own eyes. And those shortcomings in his game were clearly a factor in their upset loss.

[iamgine]

This season I have him 6th. Superstar level.

[Manny98]

This season top 8-12, definitely better than Lillar