Poll - You're a WNBA GM Diamond Deshields or Kelsey Mitchell

[Schoup]

All depends on the style of your team. Mitchell is going to put up 30+ shots a game and that's okay if you want to build you team and scoring around 1 player.

 

[huskeynut]

As a GM, I would take Mitchell over Diamond.

I think Mitchell has a better attitude and works harder. In a pro setting, she does not have to carry a team as she has had to do at OSU.

Diamond, though athletically gifted, is inconsistent and there is a question of her health.

 

[CocoHusky]

Also I see Deshields going to WNBA this year. Mitchell is next year.
This years draft will be interesting as San Antonio needs post play.

Kelsey Mitchell's DoB is September 17, 1994. She is eligible for the WNBA draft in 2017, as is Mercedes Russell, Kayla Davis, & Stefanie Mavunga.
I betting that Mitchell goes to WNBA.

 

[Naples Husky]

Pheasant Collier. Hands down. I am the GM I can do what I want.

 

[CocoHusky]

Pheasant Collier. Hands down. I am the GM I can do what I want.

Yea that Pheasant Collier is a baller, I 'm not sure she eligible for WNBA draft though.

 

[tonehill68]

I'm going against the majority here and picking DD. I saw the potential she had at NC and it's almost the same style of play as Mitchell now and she won NFOY. Sad to say that the Tennessee she came to is not the Tennessee she envisioned coming to when she transferred. She almost seemed disinterested now. But she is my choice because she's a taller talent capable of doing more than what she is showing.

 

[JoePgh]

I do not see any attitude issue, with Kelsey Mitchell.

How do we know that the game she played against UConn is anything other than what McGuff wanted her to play? After all, it worked very well in the first half, and as was pointed out, they weren't very successful when she was on the bench. The second half was a different story, but that is a familiar story for UConn fans -- the exact same thing happened to Marina Mabrey at Gampel last year.

You can't expect Kelsey to have a lot of assists if the offense isn't set up to create assist opportunities for her, and it certainly did not appear to be. When her individual scoring opportunities were effectively limited in the second half (as they were in the entire game against UConn last year), she didn't have offensive options in her quiver to take advantage of that by dishing to her teammates. That is on the coaches (most likely), not her.

Geno had some comments in his postgame interview that indirectly addressed this. After he said that one player had never beaten UConn, somebody asked him if Diana Taurasi had ever individually beaten a UConn opponent, and if not, what did he mean by, "We have Diana and you don't!" He said that Diana never tried to win by her own scoring, and in fact her best offensive skill was in making her teammates better. He said she did that better than any other female basketball player that he has ever seen or coached. What he didn't say is that she wouldn't have done that if her coaches hadn't given her an offensive system that provided the options that Ohio State's offense seems to be lacking to punish an opponent who devotes too much attention to her individually.

 

[triaddukefan]

Diamond

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

I voted Mitchell! I think there's a thread of coachable there!
I've already upset the mods several times, so I won't tell you what I think of DD! But it's way beyond negative!

 

[MilfordHusky]

I go outside the box and pick Gabby Williams.

 

[hussybulldog]

Seems that there should be a choice for a minority group of voters: neither.

 

[bballnut90]

Mitchell and it's not close. She had mediocre games against Connecticut, but so have a lot of players who went on to be WNBA stars. She takes a lot of shots for her team but she appears to be coachable and has had a very positive impact at Ohio State. No way do they beat Maryland twice last year without her there. Other players who had the chucker label and went on to be solid pros:
-Angel McCoughtry (Olympian)
-Jewell Loyd (WNBA ROY)
-Odyssey Sims
-Candice Wiggins (WNBA Champ)
-Betty Lennox (WNBA Champ)
-Kristi Toliver (WNBA Champ)

Not to mention NBA players who were labeled as chuckers for being volume shooters at one point in their career:
-Seth Curry
-Kobe Bryant
-Michael Jordan

Mitchell has the potential to be a better scorer than anyone of the WNBA players listed. She takes a lot of shots, but that's the role that's asked of her. I dont doubt for a minute that she'd be happy to drop the shots per game if it was best for the team. She's never been a player who appears to have an attitude. More impressively, she shoots for a good percentage considering how many shots she taeks (45% the last two years, 42% as a frosh), hits well from 3 (36-40% all 3 years), and shoots over 80% from the line. Compared to percentages shot by other players on this list, she's doing quite well. For comparison, in her last year of college, Loyd shot 44%, McCoughtry shot 43.7%, Wiggins shot 42.9%, Sims shot 44.6% etc. All of those players play at programs with better offenses than McGuff runs at Ohio State, so they were getting better looks than Mitchell. The majority of Mitchell's shots she creates for herself, and many are tough contested jumpers.

She isn't a turnover machine, averaging about 3 per game the last two years, which is pretty solid considering how much she handles the offense. Her assist numbers aren't great, but I 100% belive she could easily average 5-6/game if OSU needed her to be more of a distributor.


Compared that to Deshields. Diamond has never shot much higher than 40% from the floor, has shot in the 25-30% from 3 (this year she's at 37%, but take out her 8-14 shooting in blowout wins and you're left with 2-13 shooting against ranked foes and in losses). Negative assist turnover ratios all three years. Solid rebounder and is a truly elite athlete but hasn't been able to put it all together. More over, she has never appeared to be a team player. Takes a number of bad shots that aren't in the flow of the offense, lazy passes/turnovers, has never appeared to have a burning desire to be great. Tennessee has sank to new lows since she suited up in orange after she was the player most of us thought would lead Tennessee back to the Final Four. She has the tools to be the next Angel McCoughtry, but the energy just hasn't shown through yet.

If I'm a GM, I don't touch Diamond as a top 5 pick until she proves more. I'm not convinced she makes your team better, where Mitchell absolutely does. You know she'll bring hustle, creative scoring and appears to be adaptable. The only negative with Mitchell is the weird cloud that is her father being an assistant coach and her sister also landing a scholarship at OSU. Almost seems like there was some under the table action going on to get her sister a schollie, even though she really isn't a D1 caliber player. I wouldn't want a player's dad having any input or trying to cause any drama about how his daughter should be used. I'm jumping to conclusions, but that's a factor you would need to consider when deciding who to pick.

 

[UcMiami]

Mitchell by a country mile. Maybe somewhere along the line DD will find a team and a coach who can bring some control to her athleticism - but that is all she has going for her, athleticism. She is a career 40%+/- FG, 28% +/- 3 pt shooter with a career A/TO of about 0.8 and a need to have the ball in her hands. As BBallnut says, there have been a lot of high volume players who succeed as pros, but they had much better stats in college than DD. And one of those is Kelsey - who shoots 43%+, 38% with an A/TO about 1.2% - same kind of freakish athleticism in a better basketball player.

I think Kelsey will be a successful pro. She is going to be forced to deal with her left hand propensity because the pros do better scouting and will force her to the right, but she has enough talent to make it work. We really watch her once a year against Uconn and few players look very good in those games as Uconn breaks down weak team play and OSU is just not a very organized team. We basically devoted to defenders to Kelsey for the whole second half and dared the other four players to step up and they couldn't. DD disappears in lots of games where the defense is non-existent.

As for attitude, from afar it also appears to be a wide gap - yes Kelsey gets a little desperate in second halves against Uconn, but I put that on facing a large deficit with a team that just isn't getting it done, and not some personality flaw. I blame the coaching for not really having a plan or executing it in those situations.

 

[meyers7]

Mitchell and it's not close. She had mediocre games against Connecticut, but so have a lot of players who went on to be WNBA stars. She takes a lot of shots for her team but she appears to be coachable and has had a very positive impact at Ohio State. No way do they beat Maryland twice last year without her there. Other players who had the chucker label and went on to be solid pros:
-Angel McCoughtry (Olympian)
-Jewell Loyd (WNBA ROY)
-Odyssey Sims
-Candice Wiggins (WNBA Champ)
-Betty Lennox (WNBA Champ)
-Kristi Toliver (WNBA Champ)

Not to mention NBA players who were labeled as chuckers for being volume shooters at one point in their career:
-Seth Curry
-Kobe Bryant
-Michael Jordan

Mitchell has the potential to be a better scorer than anyone of the WNBA players listed. She takes a lot of shots, but that's the role that's asked of her. I dont doubt for a minute that she'd be happy to drop the shots per game if it was best for the team. She's never been a player who appears to have an attitude. More impressively, she shoots for a good percentage considering how many shots she taeks (45% the last two years, 42% as a frosh), hits well from 3 (36-40% all 3 years), and shoots over 80% from the line. Compared to percentages shot by other players on this list, she's doing quite well. For comparison, in her last year of college, Loyd shot 44%, McCoughtry shot 43.7%, Wiggins shot 42.9%, Sims shot 44.6% etc. All of those players play at programs with better offenses than McGuff runs at Ohio State, so they were getting better looks than Mitchell. The majority of Mitchell's shots she creates for herself, and many are tough contested jumpers.

She isn't a turnover machine, averaging about 3 per game the last two years, which is pretty solid considering how much she handles the offense. Her assist numbers aren't great, but I 100% belive she could easily average 5-6/game if OSU needed her to be more of a distributor.


Compared that to Deshields. Diamond has never shot much higher than 40% from the floor, has shot in the 25-30% from 3 (this year she's at 37%, but take out her 8-14 shooting in blowout wins and you're left with 2-13 shooting against ranked foes and in losses). Negative assist turnover ratios all three years. Solid rebounder and is a truly elite athlete but hasn't been able to put it all together. More over, she has never appeared to be a team player. Takes a number of bad shots that aren't in the flow of the offense, lazy passes/turnovers, has never appeared to have a burning desire to be great. Tennessee has sank to new lows since she suited up in orange after she was the player most of us thought would lead Tennessee back to the Final Four. She has the tools to be the next Angel McCoughtry, but the energy just hasn't shown through yet.

If I'm a GM, I don't touch Diamond as a top 5 pick until she proves more. I'm not convinced she makes your team better, where Mitchell absolutely does. You know she'll bring hustle, creative scoring and appears to be adaptable. The only negative with Mitchell is the weird cloud that is her father being an assistant coach and her sister also landing a scholarship at OSU. Almost seems like there was some under the table action going on to get her sister a schollie, even though she really isn't a D1 caliber player. I wouldn't want a player's dad having any input or trying to cause any drama about how his daughter should be used. I'm jumping to conclusions, but that's a factor you would need to consider when deciding who to pick.

Mitchell by a country mile. Maybe somewhere along the line DD will find a team and a coach who can bring some control to her athleticism - but that is all she has going for her, athleticism. She is a career 40%+/- FG, 28% +/- 3 pt shooter with a career A/TO of about 0.8 and a need to have the ball in her hands. As BBallnut says, there have been a lot of high volume players who succeed as pros, but they had much better stats in college than DD. And one of those is Kelsey - who shoots 43%+, 38% with an A/TO about 1.2% - same kind of freakish athleticism in a better basketball player.

I think Kelsey will be a successful pro. She is going to be forced to deal with her left hand propensity because the pros do better scouting and will force her to the right, but she has enough talent to make it work. We really watch her once a year against Uconn and few players look very good in those games as Uconn breaks down weak team play and OSU is just not a very organized team. We basically devoted to defenders to Kelsey for the whole second half and dared the other four players to step up and they couldn't. DD disappears in lots of games where the defense is non-existent.

As for attitude, from afar it also appears to be a wide gap - yes Kelsey gets a little desperate in second halves against Uconn, but I put that on facing a large deficit with a team that just isn't getting it done, and not some personality flaw. I blame the coaching for not really having a plan or executing it in those situations.

Both excellent analysis (expanding on my prior post). And they just both happen to agree with me.

 

[GiladKatzDeli]

If you're the CT Sun, you're picking neither because despite the fact you finished near the bottom of the league, you have no 1st round pick this year!

 

[Wbbfan1]

Have to admit, I'm surprised at the poll results so far. I expected Kelsey Mitchel to be the preferred player, but not by the margin that she is winning by.

Some have said that Kelsey makes the players on her team better while Diamond doesn't. I disagree as I see Diamond attempting to get other players involved and so many times it results in a TO credited to Diamond when the other player was the fault.. IMO Diamond due to injuries and her effort to get her teammates involved has sacrificed her game. She could be averaging more points per game. Diamond does show her emotions more so then Kelsey, but I wonder if that's just her personality. IMO it can't be argued that Diamond doesn't want to win and that seems to be most of her frustrations by her failures to produce or her teammates not working as hard as she seems to think they should be. Put a healthy Diamond on Ohio State they just might be a better team as there would be more balanced scoring.

 

[iamcbs]

I love KMitch, but Diamond is more pro-ready right now. She's more athletic than Jewel Lloyd and a better perimeter player than she's given credit for. She's also a fantastic defensive player when she's interested. KMitch is a block of semtex, a deluxe scorer and ball-handler. She the most dangerous player on the court from anywhere on the court. However MoJeff rendered her moot, because KMitch is defensively indifferent. Coach McGuff and Coach Daddy have done her a disservice by not developing that aspect of her game. The variables of drafting make this an unfair question, but if it's just which one do I take with no other variables, then it's Diamond without question.

 

[Ozzie Nelson]

Both players are young college student athletes. Both players have enormous potential. I wish the best for them.

 

[eebmg]

Its hard to make any assessment on Kelsey Mitchell since I only see her against UConn and they can make anyone look bad. On the other hand, I have seen DD multiple times since I am always interested in seeing how badly Tennessee will play with all that talent
and they never disappoint. DD is the best terrible player in the country. Her turnovers are unbelievable and she cant make 2 shots in a row (open or otherwise which is far more often). Some BY's say her defense is good but when I saw the VTech game, there little spitfire pg Chanette Hicks torched them again and again. Therefore, KM is my pick if forced to.

 

[wallman]

This is a strange class. I do not think there is a player who I would 100% want. It may be a class where you take a piece that your team really needs and shore up some weak areas.

Re this argument if I HAD to chose probably Mitchell, I think they both have baggage areas. I think Mitchell is a more reliable 3 point shooter so could play that role, whereas I think DD would just bung up the works.

 

[stwainfan]

How does Mitchell's volume shooting and different from Simmons?
I do think Diamond has more potential.

 

[wallman]

How does Mitchell's volume shooting and different from Simmons?
I do think Diamond has more potential.

Simmons was not the focal point of anything at Tenn so why are you even comparing them. Potential shmotential haven't seen any of that argument for 6 years.

 

[UcMiami]

Have to admit, I'm surprised at the poll results so far. I expected Kelsey Mitchel to be the preferred player, but not by the margin that she is winning by.

Some have said that Kelsey makes the players on her team better while Diamond doesn't. I disagree as I see Diamond attempting to get other players involved and so many times it results in a TO credited to Diamond when the other player was the fault.. IMO Diamond due to injuries and her effort to get her teammates involved has sacrificed her game. She could be averaging more points per game. Diamond does show her emotions more so then Kelsey, but I wonder if that's just her personality. IMO it can't be argued that Diamond doesn't want to win and that seems to be most of her frustrations by her failures to produce or her teammates not working as hard as she seems to think they should be. Put a healthy Diamond on Ohio State they just might be a better team as there would be more balanced scoring.

At UNC with a lot of very good players around her she shot the highest number of twos and threes on that team by a WIDE margin while hitting them at the lowest percentage by a wide margin of any of the main players on that team - OK freshman trying to do too much or whatever. On TN in 2015-16 two years later she shot 499 times - the next highest player shot 317 times - on threes 145, the next highest took 96 - and her percentages ... .391 and .248 - the team shot .408/.254 which is pretty pathetic, but Diamond and her backcourt mate Te'a dragged those percentage a lot lower than they should have been.
Not sure what it would look like if Diamond decided to be more selfish and take more shots. Last year she took 23% of the shots while playing while playing 13% of the total minutes.
Kelsey Mitchell actually takes a higher percentage of her teams shots while playing a higher percentage of minutes 28%/18% but she also scores a higher percentage of her teams points 30% to 21% and more efficiently than the rest of her team.
Diamond scored 1.03 points per shot while her team scored 1.08
Kelsey scored 1.42 points per shot while her team was scoring 1.29
Those are significant differences.

 

[TerpWomenFan]

Kelsey Mitchell's DoB is September 17, 1994. She is eligible for the WNBA draft in 2017, as is Mercedes Russell, Kayla Davis, & Stefanie Mavunga.
I betting that Mitchell goes to WNBA.

I was just going to post this. Sort of the Jewell Loyd scenario.
Mystics can draft KMitch and sign EDD as a restricted FA. The Mystics fans can finally have something to cheer for after 20+ years of bad basketball.