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With Norman Powell being a key addition to the Miami Heat, another lateral move that the team made was retaining Davion Mitchell, who was acquired at the trade deadline in the Jimmy Butler deal. As the Heat brought back Mitchell on a $24 million contract earlier, there's no doubt that he stood out not just to the fanbase, but star Bam Adebayo.
Speaking last Saturday, Adebayo would touch on Miami re-signing Mitchell, with whom the two have been teammates for half of last season due to the aforementioned trade involving Butler. Besides the skills on the court, such as his defense, ball-handling, and playmaking, Adebayo looks at it more from a “brotherhood” aspect, according to The Miami Herald.
“Davion being back, obviously, we’ve been missing somebody that can really play on-ball defense,” Adebayo said about Mitchell. “And having him come in and be that guy and understand his role, I’m looking forward to him being here for a full year and all of us being together and getting to know one another and turning this into more of a brotherhood. We were kind of disconnected a little bit, trying to figure out everybody’s role and trying to figure out everybody’s style of play.”
Mitchell stood out in the role he played in setting up such players as Adebayo and Tyler Herro, playing exceptional defense, and even hitting shots when needed, like shooting 50.4 percent from the field and 44.7 percent from three-point range.
“But I wanted to be here, I wanted to keep playing here, especially because I didn’t have that many months here,” Mitchell said, via The Miami Herald. “I got traded in February, so I wanted to see what I could do for this team and what we can do as an organization.”
Davion Mitchell on further building chemistry with the Heat
While the Heat are still amid the offseason, looking to continue to iron out the roster, Mitchell will serve as a versatile piece under head coach Erik Spoelstra, whether it is in the starting lineup or off the bench. He would echo the same sentiments as Adebayo, saying that he wanted to keep playing in Miami due to the short time he had with the franchise last season.
“I’m just excited to be back here with this group of guys, with this coaching staff, with this organization. It’s completely different from the places I’ve been in,” Mitchell said in July. “They really take winning seriously here, and I respect that, and I’m excited to be here.”
“It’s going to be good for me and the team, just the chemistry that we can build,” Mitchell continued. “We won a couple games, we even made it to the playoffs with very little chemistry, especially with injuries and just getting traded here. So we didn’t really know how to jell with one another. I feel like we kind of figured it out a little bit…But to have a training camp with one another, just to go at each other, just to learn from one another, spend time outside of basketball with each other, I think is going to build a lot of team chemistry.”
At any rate, Mitchell and the Heat are looking to improve after finishing with a 37-45 record, which put them 10th in the Eastern Conference.
