It took me until the Jazz TV dudes showed the list of Jazz rookies with the most 20 point games, but Donovan Mitchell’s game totally reminds me of Darrell Griffith A.K.A. Dr. Dunkenstein A.K.A. The Golden Griff. I even made some vintage highlights of that dude scoring 40 and totally outplaying Michael Jordan (sound familiar?), I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Short-ish scoring guards with insane hops? There aren’t too many of those in the history of the Jazz.
In case you’re wondering, Griffith had 50 20-point games his rookie year, enough to get him ROY of the Year, a mark that Mitchell will probably not hit. He was kind of a chucker and not really a winning player in the end, so hopefully Mitchell deviates from that path and eventually has wins to go with his stats.
The commentators in this one keep talking about how he should be Rookie of the Month for December, which is fine, but who cares? I don’t think anyone gives a hoot about that particular honor, and if he gets snubbed, is it like a travesty? He’s making a case for ROY of the Year, that’s all that matters. Maybe I’d even give it to him right now if the season ended today. Recency bias is real, and Ben Simmons just put up a lame 6-6-6 game.