What would it have looked like if the Lakers selected Donovan Mitchell No. 2 in the 2017 NBA Draft, and paired him with LeBron James?
For the Denver Nuggets, Donovan Mitchell could be the one who got away. The Nuggets held the No. 13 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft where they selected Mitchell and then flipped him to the Utah Jazz for Trey Lyles and the No. 24 pick, which they turned into Tyler Lydon. Rumor has it that deals for Kevin Love or Paul George were on the table but eventually fell through, leaving them with what is, in hindsight, an embarrassingly paltry return for a player it sounds like they never really thought about keeping.
The Nuggets hold a special place in the hall-of-regret for missing out on Mitchell, primarily because they literally had him in their grasp and then decided to turn all that lemonade into lemons. But at this point, Mitchell looks like the second-best player in that draft class and at least 11 other teams passed on him before the Nuggets.
If you re-ran the 2017 draft (we did), Jayson Tatum probably goes No. 1 and Mitchell probably goes No. 2 to the Lakers (he did). The spiderweb of effects stretches endlessly — if Mitchell joins the Lakers do Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma get the same chances to shine? Do the Lakers still sign LeBron James? Can they still pull off a trade for Anthony Davis without including Mitchell? Are the Lakers the ones who close the deal with Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2019?
But tracking out all those hypotheticals on a bulletin board with yarn and newspaper clippings isn’t nearly as interesting a mental exercise as just letting the edges of reality blur and imagining what the Lakers would look like right now built around LeBron and Mitchell, as we currently know him.
Mitchell is incredibly skilled but his game is buoyant, organic shapes and joyous levitation. He has carved out his All-Star niche as a primary creator — for the last two seasons more than two-thirds of his makes have been unassisted — but he is at his most resonant when he works quickly, in bursts, sharp-cuts and split-second decisions. This season, 377 of his shots seven or more dribbles, which is fine if all you care about is an efficient offense. But if you really want to be moved, mind, body and soul, liver and spleen, imagine Mitchell playing off a creator and gravitational force on the scale of LeBron.
The image I can’t get out of my head is that iconic picture of The Flying Death Machine, fully unfurled. Only this time it’s Mitchell as the human pogo stick in the background, while LeBron plays heroic conqueror, swag enough to not even look as the pass he threw becomes an alley-oop for the ages.
Twitter eggs are going to be arguing for years about whether Mitchell is alpha enough to lead a team to a title but he’s clearly beta to have the kind of LeBron-adjacent impact that Davis had this past season. Mitchell is a rock-solid catch-and-shoot threat (43.7 percent on catch-and-shoot 3s this season) even though the demands of his role mean he takes nearly twice as many pull-ups as 3s off the catch. He’s decent as an isolation creator but most interesting when he has the chance to attack a defense that’s already in disarray.
Whether that’s cutting through open space, roaring down court in transition or navigating the traffic cones of sloppy closeouts, Mitchell would be this player so much more often next to LeBron. He excels in space and in this alternate timeline, he wouldn’t have to do so much conjuring — the space would find its way to him.
The LeBron-Wade analogy has flaws. Wade was only a few years older than LeBron when they teamed up in Miami and they entered the league at the same time so they were working with roughly the same body of experience. There is a 12-year gap between Mitchell and LeBron and as tight as The King has kept it tight over the years, he’s not the athlete he was. Still, LeBron hasn’t really had the opportunity to play with someone like Wade since he left Miami.
Kyrie could be the 1b creator but he wasn’t as dynamic or complementary off the ball as Mitchell could be. Kevin Love and Davis are powerful complements but in entirely different ways, more static and more ground-bound. Thinking about the passer and orchestrator LeBron has become, conducting a wing as virtuosic as Mitchell is compelling. They might not have the upside of this LeBron-Davis pairing but I’m not sure any other semi-plausible alternate timeline results in as much as dynamism for the Lakers, as much Showtime mojo and blissful energy.
It is what it is. LeBron has Davis. Mitchell has Gobert, for now. They’re rivals and at some point will resume their zero-sum pursuit of the same prize. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to get a taste at the All-Star Game next season (Mitchell played for Team Giannis this year). It’s all a hypothetical, but I’m not ready to let go yet, of a different kind of synergy and a Flying Death Machine, rebuilt.