{"id":567488,"date":"2026-01-29T01:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/567488\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T01:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T01:38:13","slug":"mark-daigneault-happy-to-see-ajay-mitchell-named-as-nba-rising-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/567488\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Daigneault ‘happy’ to see Ajay Mitchell named as NBA Rising Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 28, 2026, 5:01 p.m. CT<\/p>\n

\"Jan<\/p>\n

At the very least, the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> will have a couple of players participate in the 2026 NBA All-Star weekend. Everybody knows about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but he will be joined by Ajay Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Mitchell was named a Rising Star. The four-team tournament consists of three teams made up of rookie and second-year players and a fourth team made up of G League players. The Friday event is to showcase the type of future talent the NBA may have on its hands.<\/p>\n

Mitchell will play for Tracy McGrady’s team. His six teammates are Tre Johnson, Kon Knueppel, Alex Sarr, Cam Spencer, Jaylon Tyson and Kel’el Ware.<\/p>\n

It shouldn’t be a shocker to see Mitchell part of the weekend festivities. The 23-year-old has skyrocketed OKC’s rotation. He’s averaged 14.1 points on 48.7% shooting, 3.7 assists and 3.5 rebounds. The Thunder have seen their second unit lineups manned by him.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally happy for him. He would\u2019ve been in that game last year had he not gotten hurt,” Daigneault said. “He was certainly on that trajectory.”<\/p>\n

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Out of OKC’s entire roster, Mitchell has made the largest leap. A toe injury last season essentially ended his rookie campaign. He had a strong start as he earned the backup guard minutes. By the time he returned, the playoffs were around the corner. He was mostly out of the postseason rotation.<\/p>\n

“For him to be acknowledged in that way, we\u2019re incredibly happy for him,” Daigneault said. “He’s a great team guy. Hardworker. Is doing all the right things from a program standpoint. He’s obviously had a huge impact on the floor. Anytime that gets reinforcement in any way, we’re happy for the guys.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 28, 2026, 5:01 p.m. CT At the very least, the Oklahoma City Thunder will have a couple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[72400,7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,30882,72482,72492,73390,72404,72649,72973,74239,73002,72444,72422,72484,72405,72485,72406,312,72403],"class_list":["post-567488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-sstssportsnbathunder","tag-sstsnokc-thunder","tag-tagajay-mitchell","tag-tagalexandre-sarr","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagcam-spencer","tag-tagjaylon-tyson","tag-tagkelel-ware","tag-tagmark-daigneault","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagoklahoma-city-thunder","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagshai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-tagsports-news","tag-thunder","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}