Utah Jazz: 2017-18 player grades for Donovan Mitchell

Weaknesses

Just because Donovan Mitchell is destined for superstardom doesn’t mean there aren’t a few holes in his game.

The first glaring blemish on Mitchell’s game is his propensity for turnovers. During the regular season he averaged 2.7 turnovers per game, and during the postseason, that average increased slightly to 2.9. The latter statistic can be attributed to his increased usage percentage during the playoffs with Rubio out (31.5 percent compared to 29.1 in the regular season), but the former isn’t exactly flattering.

During the regular season, Mitchell was primarily deployed as a shooting guard — 66 percent of the time — which is often viewed as a secondary (or tertiary, depending on the team) ball-handling position. Put into simpler terms, the ball is not in the shooting guard’s hands as much.

Despite this, 101 of Mitchell’s 215 turnovers during the regular season were from bad passes. Of the remaining 114, 74 were lost ball turnovers. Some of that can be attributed to rookie jitters, but if Mitchell wants to take the next step, he’ll need to take care of the ball better.

Another one of Mitchell’s weaknesses is his (somewhat) streaky 3-point shooting. Mitchell shot 34.4 percent from deep during the regular season, which isn’t too far off the league average of 36.2 percent.

At the same time, while he had performances in the postseason where he went 4-of-7 and 5-of-8 from beyond the arc (both in the first round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder), he also shot 2-of-7 in three straight games against the Houston Rockets. Outside of maybe Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, no star is expected to be able to hover around 60 percent on their 3-point attempts, but the Jazz can’t just rely on Joe Ingles.

Mitchell is a great player already, he just needs to work on some of these fundamentals, which will come with time and experience.