{"id":112491,"date":"2024-12-16T13:52:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T18:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=112491"},"modified":"2024-12-16T13:52:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T18:52:02","slug":"ajay-mitchell-standard-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/16\/ajay-mitchell-standard-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Reasons Why The Thunder Haven’t Elevated Ajay Mitchell to a Standard Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Thunder are one win away from becoming the second team to win the NBA Cup Championship. For the first time this season, they will face the Milwaukee Bucks to decide the winner of the second NBA Cup. In addition, the Thunder have gotten off to a great 20-5 start and have a three-game lead for the number-one seed in the Western Conference. However, the one thing that has been surprising for OKC fans is how impressive rookie Ajay Mitchell<\/a> has been.\u00a0Mitchell was a second-round pick by the Thunder in the 2024 draft and signed a two-way contract. In 25 games, he has averaged 5.5 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game. Furthermore, he has been efficient, shooting 47.8% from the field and 41.9% from three.<\/p>\n

Since he is on a two-way contract, he is only eligible to play 50 games, meaning he has 25 games left. Ultimately, people are wondering, with how well he has looked and only has 25 games left to play, why the Thunder haven’t elevated Mitchell to a standard contract. In the past, the Thunder have had success with two-way players before with Lu Dort<\/a> and Aaron Wiggins<\/a>. Mitchell could be the next success story for the Thunder. Today, we will examine three possible reasons why the Thunder haven’t elevated Ajay Mitchell to a standard contract.<\/p>\n

3 Reasons Why The Thunder Haven’t Elevated Ajay Mitchell to a Standard Contract<\/h2>\n

Injuries at The Center Position for The Thunder<\/h3>\n

The Thunder this season have been dealt with many injuries, especially to their center position. Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a> missed<\/a> the first 15 games of the season with a hand injury. Chet Holmgren<\/a> has missed<\/a> the past 15 games with a hip injury and isn’t expected to return till late January at the earliest. In addition, their third center,\u00a0Jaylin Williams,<\/a> hasn’t played at all this season, and his return is not known. Through the first 25 games of the season, the Thunder have been forced to play with only one center or none.<\/p>\n

Coming into the year, the Thunder had one roster spot open. The Thunder could have easily used the open roster spot to elevate Mitchell to a standard contract. However, with their injuries at the center position, the Thunder were forced to fill that roster spot with a center. Since there are no open roster spots at the moment, the Thunder would have to release someone to elevate Mitchell. Finally, with players like Alex Caruso<\/a>, Ousmane Dieng<\/a>, and others missing games, it forced Mitchell to play in more games earlier on.<\/p>\n

Limited with Future Roster Spots<\/h3>\n

The Thunder have locked up their core for the 2025-2026 season already. This means they only have two roster spots open for next year. Caruso is expected<\/a> to sign an extension, leaving only one spot open. In addition, the Thunder could add around two to four rookies with the 2025 draft picks they possess. The Thunder are already going to have to get creative in roster construction for next year. Adding Mitchell to a standard contract will make decisions even harder for next year. This will be a problem for the Thunder over the next five-plus years with all their draft picks and not enough roster spots. If Mitchell does come back to the Thunder, it could very well be on another two-way contract.<\/p>\n

A Player They Can Afford to Lose<\/h3>\n

Even though Mitchell has been very impressive as a rookie in the first 25 games of the season,\u00a0he isn’t one of the core pieces they have in place right now and is someone they can afford to lose. Regardless, his impressive start makes him a player the Thunder would like to keep long-term if they could. Mitchell’s skill set as a high-IQ shooter and on-ball defender makes him a perfect fit in OKC’s system.<\/p>\n

Nikola Topi\u0107,<\/a> who is going to miss his entire rookie season, could end up taking Mitchell’s role for next season. Topic is a jumbo-sized playmaking guard who OKC spent a lottery pick on in June. Also, Mithell is an older rookie at 22 years old and won’t have the same ceiling compared to Topi\u0107, who is 19. While Mitchell has been impressive this season, how much more growth does he have as a player with his age?<\/p>\n

The Last Word on Ajay Mitchell’s Contract<\/h3>\n

Finally, the Thunder could very well reward his play and give him a standard contract. Mitchell has earned that with how he has performed this season on both ends of the floor. However, with the reasons stated above, it seems unlikely they will give him a standard contract this year. Even though Thunder fans and the organization have appreciated everything he has done up until this point, Mitchell might be the first player they are forced to let go, given the state of their roster next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Thunder are one win away from becoming the second team to win the NBA Cup Championship. For the first time this season, they will face the Milwaukee Bucks to decide the winner of the second NBA Cup. In addition, the Thunder have gotten off to a great 20-5 start and have a three-game lead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5171,"featured_media":112516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,22],"tags":[49285,2037,4292,993,49605],"class_list":["post-112491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-thunder","tag-ajay-mitchell","tag-alex-caruso","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-isaiah-hartenstein","tag-nba-cup"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112491"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112517,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112491\/revisions\/112517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}