 |
| Ajay Mitchell has improved a lot this season, which favors Oklahoma City in its back-to-back bid. Imagn (file photo) |
MANILA--In an era where second-round picks have become more valuable than ever, Ajay Mitchell has emerged as a surprise package for Oklahoma City.
Selected 38th overall in the 2024 NBA Draft, the Belgium international drastically improved this season after seeing limited minutes last year in the Thunder's championship run.
Averaging just 6.5 points per game in his rookie year, Mitchell is now one of Oklahoma City's reliable personnel off the bench, doubling his scoring to 13.6 per night alongside 3.3 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.2 steals in nearly 26 minutes of action.
When asked by various reporters early Friday in a global media availability, among those Mitchell credited for his better play this year is the reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
"Learning from Shai has been incredible. You know, he's the best player in the league, so being able to just learn from him, see what he does on and off the court too, he's like he's a great model on and off the court, so it's great to have him and be able to learn from him," Mitchell said.
With his role already increased during the regular season, Mitchell is also expected to have a bigger task ahead in the playoffs as the Thunder go for back-to-back titles.
According to him, they quickly forgot everything that transpired last June and turned their attention to the new set of 82 games which will now increase to at least 98 since they clinched a playoff spot with the best record this season at 64-18.
"We set it straight right away when we started this season of kind of forgetting about what we did last year. We came in this year knowing that, 'Yeah, we won last year, but it's in the past and now we got to go do it again,' so from the beginning of the season, we just, we were back at zero and zero got back to, to what we always do. And I think that that really helped us to just focus on this season and trying to be a better team than last year," Mitchell further said.
Oklahoma City will face the winner of the last Western Conference Play-In Game on Saturday (Philippine Time) between Golden State and Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs.
The Warriors, despite being the 10th seed and needing to outlast the Los Angeles Clippers in a knockout game on Thursday (Philippine Time) to stay in the postseason, could pose as a huge threat for the Thunder should they beat the Suns on the road to clinch the eighth seed, especially with veteran stars Steph Curry and Al Horford displaying their vintage form.
However, Mitchell said that Oklahoma City prioritizes improving their form first before thinking about Golden State and Phoenix.
"We obviously go into it focusing on ourselves and then focusing on who we're going to play in the first round," he added.
The Thunder will begin their playoff journey on Monday (Philippine Time).
