Donovan Mitchell has been one of the biggest surprises this year in the NBA. He was selected with the 13th pick in the 2017 NBA draft by the Denver Nuggets before being traded to the Utah Jazz.

He has been the best rookie in the NBA over the last month or two and has helped lead the Jazz to ten straight wins. He has also been climbing up the rookie ranks in the Jazz record book, and now sits in solo first place in one category.

According to HoopsHype, Mitchell's 17.0 player efficiency rating is the highest of any Jazz rookie in history, besting the likes of Deron Williams along with the legendary tandem of John Stockton and Karl Malone.

 

A player's PER is a per-minute rating developed by ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger. In Hollinger's own words:

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The PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance.

The average player rating every season is at 15, which means Mitchell is above the NBA average for this season.

On the year, Mitchell is averaging 19.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game. At the beginning of the season, his minutes weren't super consistent from game to game and that made his stats really fluctuate.

In the month of November, he was only averaging 22.1 minutes and 9.3 points per game. So far this month though, Mitchell is averaging 32.8 minutes and 21.3 points per game.

The most important improvement though has been the play of the team. The Jazz were a really inconsistent team at the beginning of the year, but as his play has become more steady, so has the play of the Jazz.