The top-seeded Jazz lead their best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals series with the Clippers two games to none thanks in no small part to Donovan Mitchell, whose heroics Thursday night included 37 points, four assists and six threes over 39 eventful minutes in a 117-111 Utah victory. A two-time All-Star and former Slam Dunk Champion, the 24-year-old cemented his superstar credentials last summer in the Orlando Bubble by pouring in 57 points—the most in a playoff game since Michael Jordan’s 63-point eruption in 1986—against Denver.
There’s a lot to like about Mitchell’s game and with Utah’s biggest threat, the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, already eliminated, the Jazz have as good a chance as anyone to represent the Western Conference in this year’s NBA Finals. That being said, ESPN hot-take factory Stephen A. Smith, whose brand has become synonymous with embellishment and hyperbole, may have put the cart before the horse Friday when he declared Mitchell the greatest Jazz player of all time.
“Donovan Mitchell is D-Wade 2.0,” said Smith on First Take, comparing Mitchell favorably to Miami Heat legend Dwyane Wade (who, ironically enough, recently purchased a minority stake in the Jazz). “I don’t want to hear about Karl Malone. I don’t want to hear about John Stockton. That’s the best player in the history of the Jazz organization.”
The future is certainly bright for Mitchell, whose postseason scoring binge (32.7 points per game, third-most behind Luka Doncic of the Mavericks and Portland’s Damian Lillard) has Utah within two games of its first conference finals appearance in 14 years. But proclaiming him to be better than Malone, the second-leading scorer in NBA history, and Stockton, the league’s all-time assists leader by a comfortable margin, is quite the leap.
Stephen A.’s bold (maybe blasphemous is the better word) declaration is almost offensive in its wrongness, disrespecting both the legacies of Malone and Stockton, who, if not for the existence of Michael Jordan, likely would have brought a championship to Salt Lake. Dominant as Mitchell has been throughout these playoffs, due to his defensive prowess, you could make the case teammate Rudy Gobert (who just won his third Defensive Player of the Year award in four seasons) is actually more critical to Utah’s success. Regardless, Smith’s argument was not well-received with Twitter eviscerating the 53-year-old for succumbing to recency bias.
That’s not to say Mitchell can’t eventually surpass his Utah predecessors Malone and Stockton (winning a title this year would put him on that trajectory), but it’s much too early to be having that conversation.
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