When It's All Said And Done Donovan Mitchell Is Going To Be Up There With Stockton/Malone For Jazz Fans
When you are a small market team like the Utah Jazz, you need to be extremely cautious during your draft process. Guys aren’t exactly lining up to head to the Jazz in free agency ya know? Every move you make has to work out perfectly if you want to compete with the big boys in the West that play in desirable markets. You look at their history, they’ve been nailing things left and right. From Gobert, to Joe Ingles, to Derrick Favors, to their head coach selection, to drafting Gordon Hayward, the list goes on and on. Well I think we can all agree that the best thing this franchise may do during their rebuild process is draft Donovan Mitchell.
If there’s one thing we’ve seen from the jump, it’s that Donovan Mitchell loves being in Utah. He has embraced the city and they have embraced him back. His emergence as a player with superstar potential could not have come at a better time since Jazz fans were just getting over the reality that Gordon Hayward left them to pursue true love. A big part of it is the fact that Mitchell is really, really, really, really good. So good that I’m pretty confident that when it comes time for him to hang it up that Jazz fans put him in the extremely rare air of Stockton/Malone. Now I don’t live in Utah, so maybe that’s blasphemous to even say, but that’s the feel I get. Honestly Mitchell checks all the boxes, his basketball talent is no joke, he will be the reason why Jazz games end up on National TV wayyy more than Jazz fans are used to, he’s marketable as hell and never gets in trouble. Hell, you tweet this dude about your pool party and next thing you know he’s hanging out with you and your buds
That’s pretty cool. Just a man of the people through and through. Now clearly, as we know, in this league things can change. But for whatever reason, I want to believe that Mitchell is going to want to, and then come through and stay in Utah his whole career
The league needs a guy that is willing to stay with a franchise for 15 years now that all the Spurs are gone, Kobe retired, and Dirk is about to. Why can’t Donovan Mitchell be that guy? He may single handedly turn the Jazz into an actual destination in a post Warriors Western Conference.
So please, if you’re a Jazz fan, how far off am I? Would you ever put him in that Stockton/Malone conversation? Because I feel like it’s only a matter of time.