### BREAKING: Wish Upon a Blue Star – Mark Mitchell Returns Home to Kansas City, SLAM Presents DUKE ’22-’23 Special Issue Drops at Midnight
**By Alex Squadron**
*SLAM Magazine*
*December 1, 2025, 11:57 PM ET*
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – The wish was made a long time ago, under a sky the color of Carolina blue. Tonight, it came true.
Mark Mitchell Jr., the 6-foot-9 forward who helped Duke reach the 2023 Sweet 16 and later transferred to Missouri, stood on the court at T-Mobile Center after dropping 31 points, 12 rebounds, and the game-sealing and-one on Purdue in the Hall of Fame Classic championship. With 0.4 seconds left and the net still swaying, he looked straight into the ESPN2 camera, pointed to the sky, and said the five words Kansas City had waited three years to hear:
“This one’s for the city.”
Then he lifted his jersey to reveal a royal-blue undershirt with a single white star and the words WISH UPON A BLUE STAR in old-English script.
At 12:00 a.m. sharp, SLAM Magazine pushed the button: SLAM Presents DUKE – The 2022-23 Special Collector’s Issue is live. Every single player from that legendary Jon Scheyer debut team is on the cover in a 16-panel gatefold that unfolds to 4½ feet wide. Mitchell is dead center, mid-windmill in Cameron Indoor, with the caption that now feels prophetic: “He always knew he was coming home.”
The issue sold 42,000 digital copies in the first seven minutes. The limited 10,000-copy metal-cover newsstand edition crashed the printer’s website. Resale prices on StockX hit $750 before sunrise.
This is the story behind the wish.
February 11, 2023. Duke 68, Virginia 62. Mitchell, a freshman from Kansas City, had just posterized Kihei Clark and sealed the win with a corner three. As the Cameron Crazies stormed the court, Mitchell found his father, Mark Sr., in the tunnel. Tears in both their eyes.
“One day,” the son whispered, “I’m bringing a championship back here. To KC. In front of y’all.”
That promise became a ritual. Every road trip, every late-night FaceTime from Durham, Mitchell ended the call the same way: “Wish upon a blue star, Dad.”
He never explained what the blue star meant. Some thought it was Duke blue. Others thought it was the star on the Kansas state flag. Tonight, inside a packed T-Mobile Center, we learned it was both, and neither.
It was the star he used to wish on from his bedroom window in Kansas City, Kansas, the one that always appeared right above Bishop Miege High School when he was a kid dreaming of leaving. The same star that followed him to Durham, then to Missouri, then back here tonight.
The SLAM issue tells it all in raw, unfiltered detail.
– 12 different covers (one for each scholarship player plus the four walk-ons who lived the season).
– A 40-page oral history narrated by the entire roster: Dereck Lively II on crying in the locker room after the Tennessee loss, Tyrese Proctor on learning to drive stick shift in Durham just to feel normal, Kyle Filipowski on the night he and Mitchell stayed in the gym until 4 a.m. because “we weren’t losing to UNC again.”
– Jeremy Roach’s handwritten letter to the 2022-23 team that ends, “We never won the big one, but we became brothers. That’s the ring I wear every day.”
– Never-before-seen photos: Mitchell asleep on the team bus clutching a photo of the Kansas City skyline; Scheyer letting the freshmen coach the final possession against Miami because “they earned it.”
But the centerpiece is Mitchell’s 18-page solo feature, shot last week in the exact spots he grew up: the courts at Quindaro Park, the weight room at Miege, the rooftop of his grandma’s house where the blue star still shines.
In it, he finally explains the undershirt.
“I wanted something that reminded me where I came from and where I was going,” Mitchell says, voice cracking. “Duke gave me the platform. Mizzou gave me the stage. But Kansas City gave me the dream. The blue star isn’t a color. It’s a promise.”
The stats from tonight are video-game absurd: 31-12-4, 13-of-18 FG, 4-of-5 from three, the and-one dagger with 0.4 left to beat Purdue 94-91. Missouri is now 9-0 and ranked No. 3. Mitchell is the early National Player of the Year frontrunner.
But the moment everyone will remember happened after the buzzer.
He found his father courtside, hugged him for a full 47 seconds while the T-Mobile Center crowd of 18,000 chanted “KC! KC!” Then he grabbed the mic from the PA announcer and said:
“Three years ago I made a wish on a blue star that one day I’d bring y’all a night like this. I’m not done yet. We got a lot more wishes to grant.”
He held up the championship trophy, turned it sideways so the light caught the blue reflection, and pointed it toward the roof, like he was returning the star to the sky.
SLAM editor-in-chief Adam Figman was on press row when it happened.
“We knew the issue was special,” Figman told me, voice hoarse from screaming. “But we didn’t know we were documenting a prophecy.”
At 12:03 a.m., Mitchell posted the cover on Instagram with the caption:
“Every player on that Duke team had a dream bigger than Durham. Mine just happened to be 450 miles west. Wish granted. Next one loading… #BlueStarSzn”
Within minutes, every former 2022-23 teammate reposted it with the same emoji: ⭐
Dereck Lively II (now starting for the Mavs): ⭐
Paolo Banchero (Magic): ⭐
Jeremy Roach (Baylor transfer): ⭐
Even Coach Scheyer: ⭐
The wish wasn’t just granted.
It multiplied.
The limited SLAM Presents DUKE metal covers are already gone. The standard edition is projected to be the highest-selling single issue in SLAM history by sunrise.
And somewhere above Kansas City, if you look close enough tonight, they say the blue star is shining a little brighter.
Because Mark Mitchell finally came home.
And he brought the whole 2022-23 Duke team with him.
Link in bio. You’re gonna want this one forever.
(Word count: 1,018)
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