Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell has been named the NBA Eastern Conference Player of the Month for games played in January 2024, the league announced on Thursday.
Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker won Player of the Month honors for the West.
This past month, Mitchell led the Cavaliers to an 11-2 record and averaged a team-high 28.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 7.6 assists and 2.08 steals in 34.1 minutes. He also posted three double-doubles, his most in a single month of his NBA career.
No other player in the entire NBA finished the month of January with averages of at least 25.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists, and 2.0 steals. Among Eastern Conference leaders, Mitchell ranked second in steals per game, third in plus/minus (+195), fourth in points per game, and sixth in assists per game.
Mitchell, the Eastern Conference steals leader on the season, had at least one steal in 12 of Cleveland’s 13 outings, including eight multi-steal games in January (tied for second-most in East). Additionally, he scored 20 points or more 11 times, including five games of at least 30 points and two 40-point performances. Mitchell was one of only two players in the East to have multiple games, scoring over 40 points (Joel Embiid). He also made an average of 3.5 three-pointers per game in January, which ranked second in the East, and his eight games with at least four triples were tied for the second-most in the entire NBA.
Some highlights during January include Mitchell erupting for a season-high and NBA Paris Game-record 45 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, and four steals against Brooklyn on Jan. 11, becoming the fifth player in NBA history to reach those totals in a single game and the first NBA player to do so since 1994.
In Cleveland’s 40-point win over Milwaukee on Jan. 17, the guard from Louisville tallied his 11,000th career point and became the fastest player in league history to accumulate 11,000 points and 1,200 three-pointers made (443 games), as well as just the fourth NBA player since 1973-74 to finish with at least 30 points, five rebounds, five assists and three steals in 26 minutes or less (Chris Mullin, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic).
He handed out a career-high tying 13 assists, to go along with 25 points and a season-high tying four steals at Orlando on Jan. 22. Mitchell closed out the month with another 45-point performance, adding six rebounds, eight assists, two steals, and one block in 35 minutes in Cleveland’s win over Detroit on Jan. 31.
On the season, Mitchell is averaging a team-best 28.2 points (seventh-best in the NBA), a career-high 5.5 rebounds, a career-high 6.4 assists (18th in NBA), and a career-high 1.92 steals (second in NBA) in 35.6 minutes.
The seventh-year guard is one of just two NBA players this season, averaging at least 25.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, and 1.5 steals (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander). Cleveland is 29-16 (.644) on the season, including an NBA-best 16-4 (.800) since Dec. 16.
Cleveland (29-16) has won three straight and battle the Grizzlies on Thursday night.
