CLEVELAND — Donovan Mitchell believes he can win the three-point contest.
On Monday, it was announced that the Cavs’ Mitchell would participate in the 2024 NBA All-Star three-point competition after being named an All-Star reserve earlier this month.
After asking around the Cavs locker room, there weren’t many people saying that he could win. It was a resounding, “He better win.”
Mitchell had previously been campaigning for teammate Sam Merrill to participate in the three-point shootout as Merrill has risen through the rankings from a sleeper that few teams had on their scouting report to one of the top pure shooters in the league.
When the campaign of trying to get Merrill to be a participant started, he was candid about wanting to take time to spend with his family and rest during the All-Star break.
“As you see in the list of guys that are going, the league likes to get big-name guys, so I knew I was never going to get invited,” Merrill told Cleveland.com. “I’m totally cool with that.”
But Mitchell will have Merrill in mind when he steps up to the racks in Indianapolis.
“I tried to get him, but he wanted to chill with his family,” Mitchell said. “So I figure, why not go out there and win it for him.”
Mitchell had 29 points in the Cavs’ 136-110 win over the Kings on Monday, shooting 5 of 11 from three-point range.
This season, Mitchell is shooting 35.1% from distance and has a career average of 36.4%. Since the 2020-21 season, only three players have made more three-pointers than Mitchell: Stephen Curry, Buddy Hield, and Jayson Tatum. Mitchell is tied with Curry for the least number of games played (227) of the four players in that span. Just five players who have made 600 or more shots from beyond the arc in that period have fewer games played.
Mitchell could also make history as the first player to have won the NBA All-Star dunk contest (2018) to win the three-point competition.
But the largest incentive to Mitchell could be the opportunity to prove, yet again, that he was deserving of being named an All-Star starter, as he’ll be competing against the two starters from the Eastern Conference selected over him: Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton and Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard.
“I don’t think I’m labeled as the shooter like the guys who are in it are, but I believe I can go out and win it, so that’s what I’m gonna go out there and do,” Mitchell said.
