De’Aaron Fox says Davion Mitchell is a top-5 on-ball defender already

Ah yes, its a good day to be a Kings fan when you are undefeated and have the most exciting offensive (Fox) and defensive (Davion) player in the NBA. Fox can lead the NBA in FTs and get his TS% to 60% while iliciting oohs and ahhs from any crowd home and away. You can see the work he put in to go nuclear on the league, and its not just the muscle. There is a new economy of motion to his mechanics and overall play which portend outthinking and outwitting the opponent, the wisdom that comes from being smart to start, combined with experience to rise to level of a creative genius at his craft. 

There is a somber mood prevailing too when you have Buddy running around like a headless chicken lost in his world of delusional grandeur and toxic aversion to the paint and Marvin getting waved off not once, but 2X, by Ty as a pick and roll partner in favor of Holmes. How low have you sunk when you are not deemed worthy of participating in a preason PnR and effectively told “go stand in the corner and watch how its done”? It is worth monitoring if this was a situational or an absolute strategy.  

Marvin gets post touches, as far as I can tell, only when there is a identified mismatch, a mouse in the house, and even this means of attack may fall by the wayside if guarded by a guy like Mann and by the time he catches the ball he is near the three point line. It is pathetic his lack of fight and resolution to carve out a name and role for himself in the league. The fire in his belly has been reduced to a flicker while Davion’s is a raging inferno.

The pleasant suprise of camp has been TT, who got 11 boards in 17 minutes compared to Marvin’s 4 boards in 20 minutes. I previously proposed the question “Should Marvin even be a rotational player?” and speculated it could go one of two ways: (1) Short leash starter with Davion to help to minimize his ineffeciencies (2) DNP-CD. The latter is shaping up with the relevant new question “Does this coach have the balls (and good sense) to bench him?”. 

Marvin is 10 for 15 FGs for 66% in preseason. Hey that is pretty good, you say, but the dominant impression is not effecient scoring because with few exceptions none of his points are skill-based, they are athletic-based, right place, right time, hence, the points are imminently forgettable and the player is imminently replaceable. We don’t even need his points and thirsty three pointer foisting. What we need from him he cannot seem to give. 

Yet the beauty of the roster upgrades by McGenius is ineptitude and incompetence stick out like a sore thumb. Last year when Marvin was woeful there was Bjelica, another woe-inducer. When Buddy was a travesty, there was CoJo, another travesty in wait. Now there is Len and TT and TD, ready to take the minutes from the chronic offenders.  

There are two narratives among the fandom I would like to dispell. The first narrative goes like this: “You see, Buddy is a shooter. Shooters gotta shoot. And as a 6th man, dude has free license to come out firing like a sniper on a coke binge. If he misses 10 in a row, he is going to make that 11th, that self-belief is so intoxicating and admirable. Let Buddy be Buddy, the hot-and-cold assasin. Advanced metrics and scoring algorithms support this perspective. You are not going to argue against nerd math, are you?” 

Buddy may make 90% of practice shots. He will beat any of his teammates in a game of HORSE. The guy is a machine. The guy is pure and the basis for his extreme confidence is justified, or put more accurately, his extreme confidence is the reason he is pure and money, mind before manifestation. But if you are lights out before the lights come on, then you shoot blanks, and the trend is disconcerting, and your recourse is keep shooting, press harder, try to impose your will with more urgency, you are in your own way. You are not in the flow, in the zone, you are going against the current, guilty of self-sabotage.

In the preseason Buddy has taken 31 shots and 26 of them are 3s! 84% of his shots are behind the line after last season he shot an incredulous and ridiuclous 73% of his shots from behind the line. The greatest three point shooter of all-time, Curry, has shot half of his shots (49%) over his majestic career from 3s, upping to a steady 58-60% from three over the last 4 seasons. In other words, even with the trend of the game going the way it has, the greatest three point shooter (scorer) shoots 40% of his shots inside the arc. Curry is more often than not in the flow, in the zone, often letting the defense dictate his shot selection, exploiting and feasting and being devastatingly unpredictable. 

Does Buddy want to try to emulate one of the greatest scorers ever, try to be a Curry-lite, or shoot 27% from 3s, his preseason mark? Has Buddy ever heard of nuance, savvy, the power of decoy? Whats the point of training like a maniac in the offseason if you do not put those athletic attributes to their fullest use by being the fullest version of yourself, midrange and floaters and drive and dish?

Even with our trio of playmakers, Buddy’s game is devolving into parody and lunacy, the undeterred machinations of a basketball madman. An intervention is needed, a radical transformation in approach, a reminder of who he was in 2018-19, replete with mandated video viewing, or cede to TD, a player with a better head on his shoulders, less ego, almost as pure from deep, more bounce to his step, more grit on D.

The second narrative worth dispelling is in regards to Davion. The comments on a few local Pods were outlandish and sad and go something like this: “Cmon, guys, you cannot expect too much for a 6’0” rookie, he may not even be an impact player this season. Do NOT expect him to single handily turn around the defense either. It is time to temper our expectations of Davion. House Plant and Bad Moody were the real prizes and basis for enthusiasm, not this little underdog. Wing depth was the real needle mover, not this blatant roster imbalancer.”

When doing my research pre-draft, I made a rare mistake, shocking as it may sound. I was not thorough enough. Davion reminded me of Donovan as TD reminded me of Donovan when we acquired him. My first impression was while this guy was a force whose age was more plus than minus he was duplicative to our talent base. I proposed whether Davion was more potent than TD as an offensive player. What I failed to review was the defensive aptitude, the transcendent ability on one end, reflected by the comment from Fox he ranks already Top 5 as an on-ball defender. I regret that I did not deep dive enough into the video to come to this recognition. It was not until after the draft I even watched the championship game in full, and I do not watch NCAA at all during the season. 

Watch or re-watch Baylor vs Gonzaga and you will see the dominant imprint Davion imposed on the game, especially the first half, outclassing Suggs, identical to what he did in Vegas and spurts in two preseason games. The sign of a star, or future stardom, is to sputter along, meander to a degree, then takeover, to be the best and player on the floor. Fox does this, Ty does this, Davion does this in their own unique ways. His projected impact also considers Davion as a good decision maker with the ball in his hands. He can be trusted to run the offense soon. His shortcoming is he cannot see the passing angles as well as a more longer distributor and he has little to NO real floater game. But these temporary weaknesses are not prohibitive to ROY season or close to it. 

In this context, his role as a point of attack defender is probably more important than a defender on the wing or at rim. A point of attack defender can blow up the whole play, taking precious seconds off the clock, forcing the opponent to initiate with suboptimal personnel out of their comfort zone and skillset. It is not just guards he will be checking , he will challenge wings like PG, Luka and Ingram. Defense is anticipation, lateral and reverse mobility to get to a spot then possess the strength to hold that spot. Then anticipate and deny again. This is what Davion does beautifully, elite anticipation then be a brickwall, get into and under the opponent to deter momentum. 
  
Defense is not primarily about height, it is about angles and taking away space with the tools to execute. Rodman got 15-20 RPG being only 6’8. He used anticipation and fight and craft. Davion is a savant in his own regard and above average in functional weight (200 pounds) for a guard with a lower center of gravity to hold his ground against equal or bigger players. This is far more pertinent than being 6’0”. Of course he is going to get beat but it is the relentless effort and skill to wear out the opponent and to make teammates job easier that is going to impact the game profoundly. 

Just because it is unusual for a defensive minded rookie PG to dramatically alter a teams fortunes does not mean it won’t be so. It is when you are superficial and overly conservative in your assessment that you fail to see and properly weigh the most pertinent variables. I will even go far as to say I do not think that Davion will get abused often in the post on switches. CP3 and Harden, for example, are guys, who rarely get picked on in the post against length. Both use their strength and smarts to pester and keep the post player off balance, and Davion is in this same class.