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Sacramento Kings defensive standout Davion Mitchell knows what his main weakness is, and he's looking to the best 3-point shooter in NBA history to help him fix it. Well at least his shooting coach, Brandon Payne, as Payne is helping Mitchell become more comfortable with the mental aspects of being a consistent outside threat.
Revealing that improving his jump shot has been his focus every year, Mitchell tells the Deuce and Mo podcast that the day after the Kings were eliminated from the 2023 NBA Playoffs, he decided he needed to seek out the best 3-point threats in the NBA.
“If I was a better shooter,” Mitchell says, “I would have been on the floor more, you know what I'm sayin'? Game 6 and Game 7.”
Davion Mitchell has spent the offseason working with Steph Curry's shooting coach Brandon Payne.
He got to work right after the season ended.
"If I was a better shooter, I would have been on the floor more, you know what I'm sayin? Game 6 and Game 7." pic.twitter.com/BbhQXsru9K
— Deuce Mason (@DeuceMason) August 7, 2023
“I was never relaxed when I shoot until I started working out with Brandon Payne,” Mitchell reveals.
The importance of Davion Mitchell
A Cinderella team last season, the Sacramento Kings were young, a roster full of princes. One might even say that descriptive fits 25-year-old team leader De'Aaron Fox, the NBA's inaugural Clutch Player of the Year in 2022-23 after leading the league with 194 points ‘in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when the score is within five points.'
Even with their youth, the Kings were nearly able to take down the mighty Golden State Warriors in the first round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Despite the Warriors no longer being as dominant as they were in the late 2010s, when their dynasty was at its peak, they're still a formidable opponent for anyone. Fox, along with 2022-23 Sixth Man of the Year finalist Malik Monk and 2022-23 third team All-NBA selection Domantas Sabonis, led the charge for Sacramento during their 3-4 loss to the Warriors.
However, because they were unable to corral a two-time NBA MVP in Curry, their efforts were wasted. Forget about the injuries sustained by Fox and Sabonis, which were significant in their impact, but factors that were out of their control. For all of his greatness, Curry scoring 33.7 points per game on 48.8 percent shooting from the field and 37.8 percent shooting from 3 was in their control.
To that point, there's a feeling that if Davion Mitchell becomes a legitimate 3-point threat, a series like that won't have slipped out of their hands. A high-level athlete with great anticipatory skills on the defensive end, Mitchell is exactly the type of player that can throw Curry off of his game.
