The Utah Jazz are the NBA’s hottest team, winning 10 straight games and jumping to the top of the standings with a 14-4 record. Donovan Mitchell is a big reason for the Jazz’s recent dominance, even though he didn’t play in their most recent win against the Dallas Mavericks after being placed in the league’s concussion protocol.
But after Hall of Fame center and NBA on TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal criticized Mitchell, another former player has chimed in. Fellow analyst Charles Barkley has also said that he’s not ready to consider the Jazz guard a superstar unless the one-time MVP sees Mitchell improve one aspect of his game, which he revealed in an interview with The Athletic’s Sam Amick.
“But as far as being a superstar, nobody’s a superstar until they can win the game multiple ways,” Barkley said. “And listen, that to me is an indictment on Donovan Mitchell. Come on, man. As much as you have the ball, you only had one game with double-digit assists? And one game double-digit rebounds? Come on. I mean Sam, that’s almost impossible.”
Barkley, who like O’Neal is an analyst on TNT’s “Inside the NBA,” compared Mitchell’s statistics to that of another analyst on the show in Kenny Smith, who according to Amick had 101 games of more than 10-plus assists in his 11 seasons in the league, though he never had more than eight boards in a game. Mitchell, meanwhile, had one regular-season game and one playoff game for the Jazz with at least 10 assists and one regular-season game and two playoff games with at least 10 rebounds.
Currently, the 24-year old Jazz guard is averaging 4.4 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game to go with his 23.4 points per contest, and just like he did with O’Neal’s criticism, Chuck’s comments will likely serve as motivation for the All-Star to reach an even higher level of play.
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