Utah Jazz: 5 takeaways from the 2018-19 NBA season
4. Donovan Mitchell bounces back in year two
A season ago, Donovan Mitchell broke into the NBA as a rookie out of Louisville and quickly started to make a name for himself around the league from the start of the 2017-18 NBA season.
During his rookie season, Mitchell averaged 20.5 points, 3.7 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 33.4 minutes per game, while shooting 43.7 percent from the field and 34 percent from 3-point range.
The question for Mitchell heading into his second season was whether or not he would be able to continue that strong start to his professional career and avoid the sophomore slump that many second-year players experience.
The young wing began the season experiencing that exact decline. Mitchell kicked off the 2018-19 regular season with inconsistencies and found himself not being able to string together a stretch of games where he was consistently able to play up to his potential, or even be relatively efficient.
That inefficient play from one of their star players made things difficult for the Jazz to find themselves in the win column early and often as the regular season took off, especially with such a strong early schedule to contend with.
But as the season continued and basically at the halfway point in the year, Mitchell seemed to somewhat find himself once again and was able to turn things around on the floor in Utah.
That, in return, improved things a great deal for the Jazz and was one of the big keys in being able to put together a stellar second half of the regular season.
In 77 games, all of which he started for Utah this season, Mitchell finished averaging a career-high 23.8 points, 4.2 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 33.7 minutes per contest. He finished shooting 43.2 percent from the field and improved his 3-point shot to be able to shoot 36.2 percent from beyond the arc.
In the second half of the regular season, Mitchell averaged 26.9 points, 4.8 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game.
His second season was filled with many ups and downs, including his play in both the regular season and in the playoffs, but he was able to bounce back and build off the success he experienced since he broke into the NBA nearly two years ago.
Moving forward for years to come, Utah is going to need him to continue to improve if it wants to try and take that next step.