The Utah Jazz have officially blown it up, sending out 200 million dollar man Rudy Gobert.
In exchange for the multiple time Defensive Player of the Year (and one of the best overall centers in the league) the Jazz will recieve 5 first round draft picks from the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Donovan Mitchell is now the man in Utah, but it remains to be seen if the guard can elevate his game to the truly elite level and carry a team deep into the playoffs. Jayson Tatum and Devin Booker were Mitchell’s two closest contemporaries among young players around the league, but now the former two have in consecutive years reached the NBA Finals, while Mitchell’s 2022 ended in disaster in the first round, giving more fuel to the fire that the Jazz and Mitchell are regular season performers only, incapable of getting it done when it really matters.
Gobert is one of the most impactful players in the league; he is a top-10 rated defensive all by himself. Any team that can’t operate around him, even given his known deficiencies on the offensive end, should be asking itself why they couldn’t utilize this asset, which the Wolves just proved is extremely coveted throughout the league.
Donovan Mitchell is a scoring guard who doesn’t play defense and isn’t all that amazing at scoring to justify him not impacting the game in any other way .
Maybe the Jazz decide to ship him out, and fully commit to the rebuild, but wherever Mitchell lands he'll have to prove that he's not just another garden variety empty stats scoring guard, and can be that player we thought he could be after his beastly 2021 playoff performance. The talent is there.
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