PALO ALTO, Calif. — Mikel Brown Jr.’s best highlight only came because of an injury.
The Louisville freshman guard has established himself as a potential lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft because of his mix of shooting and athletic finishing. The best example of that came in the volcanic lefty jam he threw down in an early-season game against Arkansas.
“I was all right-handed,” Brown said. “Like elementary and middle school, I was all right hand.
“I ended up breaking my finger, which caused me to get surgery, so I had a cast on my right hand, so all I had was my left hand. So I was constantly doing stuff with my left, and ultimately, my left has become as strong, if not stronger than my right hand.”
Especially as a dunker, as Arkansas found out.
“My left hand is definitely my hand that I usually like to go to. Like John Wall. John Wall’s left-handed dunker. It’s just different. I think I catch a lot of people off guard with it, and I’m glad to have it.”
John Wall? The guy whose last full season was in 2018? Yes, this tracks.
One thing that stood out when I caught up with Brown in early January was that almost any basketball topic would lead to these references to players from several years ago, some of whom became stars before the 19-year-old Orlando, Fla., native was even born. He may be young, but as a basketball viewer, he’s an old soul.
Averaging 16.4 points and 5.0 assists thus far, Brown’s ability to break down defenders off the dribble, accelerate to the cup and complete wrong-footed finishes in the paint has scouts pondering how he might fare in the more open floor of the NBA.
“I’ve always had that quick twitch, that knack for touching the paint,” Brown said. “If you’re a guard that touches the paint a lot of times in a game, you’re gonna create so many advantages for others. And that’s definitely a point of emphasis to get in the paint, create for myself and others, from Coach PK (Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey).”
Conversely, while Brown is shooting only 28.3 percent from 3, nobody is really sweating it. Watching him shoot clean releases with deep range in warmups, it’s clear he projects as a plus shooter. His 3-point volume (14.4 per 100 possessions, with a heavy component off the dribble) backs up that notion as well; historically, volume is a better long-term indicator than accuracy, as players tell on themselves by their shooting choices.
But let’s get back to those players he watches.
“I model my game after a lot of people. I take people’s parts of their game and try to implement it to mine. Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo. (Steph) Curry, in terms of moving off the ball. Trae Young and how he probes and how uses the pick-and-roll. Dame Lillard, how he gets his spots and creates shots for himself. I watch everybody, and I learn from everybody.”
Yeah, Brown is a tapehead. And he’s not just streaming YouTube clips either.
“I’m watching full games,” he said. “I’m just obsessed with just watching basketball. I enjoy watching basketball and, you know, I’m sitting in front of the TV, and I could be watching just for the entertainment, but also I’m like, dang, let me try to work on that move. Like, look how you created space. Let me try and go in a gym and work on it, right? That’s a big thing for me. … I love this game of basketball so much that anybody I’m watching, I’m trying to get better from it.”
Fittingly, Brown’s favorite player retired in 2016, when he was 10. He is a huge Kobe Bryant fan, but in this case, it’s more about the attitude than the clips on tape.
“His work ethic definitely inspires me,” Brown said. “The way he goes about his craft, the way he’s very detailed about it, I think, has definitely motivated me to be the same way, and being consistent with my routine and how he was consistent with his routine and when he would get in the gym and what he would work on.”
As for Brown’s game, one thing that stands out on his tape, especially as an Atlanta resident, is Brown’s knack for rejecting screens with a right-to-left dribble and creating a runway to the rim. That’s a move Young perfected with the Hawks. The twist for Brown is that he can combine that start with a wrong-footed finish at the cup, another skill he’s mastered.
“Rejects are big for us as guards. That’s one of the first options that we want. If we get a reject, we basically have an advantage,” Brown said. “Everything else opens up because everybody was playing for that ball screen. So now you reject, and now everybody’s in the scramble.”
By this point, you’ve likely noted that most of the players he’s talking about are point guards. While most draftniks see Brown more as a combo, he sounded pretty comfortable with the idea of playing as an on-ball creator.
“If you need me to be that point guard, to orchestrate everything and get people involved, I can be that,” Brown said. “If you want me to score, I can do that as well. (But) I do think my best attribute is creating for others at the end of the day, just to see my teammates and put them in the best position to take advantage of an opportunity. I really thrive on that, and that kind of gets me going.”
Brown missed over a month of the season with a back injury before recently returning to Louisville’s lineup and was out when I caught up with him. His comments to me were similar to those he later posted online in response to questions about his absence — that a fall in Louisville’s game against Memphis aggravated a previous problem.
“I had a hard fall in high school,” he said.“Somebody undercut me, and I just fell right directly on my back, and honestly, my back hasn’t been fully 100 percent ever since then.”
After a 1-for-13 ride on the struggle bus against Duke last Monday and a wobbly first few minutes Saturday against SMU (five turnovers in his first nine minutes), Brown’s game seemed to snap back into form in the second half versus the Mustangs. He scored 20 points off the bench to lead a Louisville comeback win, with his buckets including a couple of difficult one-footed finishes from the left side and three pull-up 3s.
He also has some areas where scouts would like to see improvement. The defense comes and goes, especially off the ball, and Brown needs to improve his awareness there. He’s also thin and needs to add strength for the next level, which he is working on but is conscious of bulking up too much and losing some of the zip that makes him special.
“I’m just trying to gain but also just maintain that explosiveness, that quickness that I’ve had all of my career,” Brown said. “Just stay consistent with it, continue to get stronger, (but) maintain that explosiveness and that ability to get up the floor very fast and use my stop-and-goes.”
With a month left in the ACC season, it’s an important time for Brown’s draft stock. Because he missed several games earlier in the season, he has only played a total of 13, including the Duke and Virginia Tech games where he just returned from injury and was still shaking off the rust.
Now he has an opportunity to make an impression in some big games down the stretch. No. 20 Louisville has a nonconference showdown against Baylor in Dallas in two weeks, conference games remaining against North Carolina, NC State, Clemson, Miami and SMU again, and a potential showdown against Duke at some point in the ACC tournament.
Brown will need to shine to cement his status as a top-10 pick because this year’s guard class looks amazing. Improving the 3-point percentage will help, but that’s likely to be baked in as random noise that gives way to a larger sample. What scouts are really looking for is more consistency on defense and fewer turnovers at the offensive end.
As for Brown, however, he isn’t thinking about June just yet.
“Just take a day at a time, man. Let’s try to stay present,” he said. “Everything else will take care of itself.”
Regardless, he’s all but certain to hear his name called on the first day of the draft and might finally get to join forces with one of the many veteran guards he’s been watching on video all these years.