A ccording to Nathaniel Mitchell, it was a “perfect storm” of circumstances that brought him to Canada Basketball and, in turn, to RJ Barrett in the early 2010s.
After finishing his playing career and returning to Toronto, Mitchell got into development work and started training Canadian national team players like Jermaine Anderson, Jevohn Shepherd and Junior Cadougan, who were all in Toronto during the NBA lockout of 2011. The players told Rowan that Mitchell was doing a good job keeping them in shape and improving their skill work, so Rowan invited Mitchell to a test run of sorts, working out a handful of players that included a 17-year-old Xavier Rathan-Mayes, a 16-year-old Andrew Wiggins, a 14-year-old Jamal Murray, and an 11-year-old RJ Barrett.
“Kid sucks,” Mitchell jokes, recalling his first impressions of Barrett. “No. When I first met him it was on court. We started working out, and I remember starting out with him, trying to get a feel for what he can do, trying to make him do layups on both sides of the backboard and ball handling — he struggled a lot in those skill areas. I remember [thinking]: Oh man, it’s gonna be tough.”
What Mitchell, now an assistant coach on Jordi Fernandez’s staff at the World Cup, didn’t realize was that Barrett was bigger and more athletic than most players his age. When he finally saw him in an AAU game, however, “I just remember him destroying kids,” Mitchell says.
