Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz keep failing to have a deep playoff run, with many people calling them a regular-season beast that gets dominated in the postseason. The player keeps struggling to lead his squad to the promised land, and this year, rumors about his exit from the team are anywhere.
With Mitchell and Rudy Gobert reportedly fighting to be the leader of the team after this season, many rumors have surfaced suggesting that one of them will be traded this offseason. Mitchell going to the New York Knicks has been a common thing in recent years, but this year the buzz has gotten bigger.
According to Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report, people within the Jazz organization believe that CAA, which represents Mitchell, is behind all these rumors. After Knicks personnel attended Game 1 of the playoffs between the Jazz and Mavericks, things reached the next level.
Jazz staffers and various figures around the league point most directly at CAA for the whispers that seem designed to push Mitchell toward requesting a trade from Utah, particularly to New York. Jazz personnel took great umbrage to Knicks executives William Wesley and Allan Houston and All-Star forward Julius Randle sitting courtside during Utah’s Game 1 road win over the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, sources said.
Randle is a Dallas native, but Wesley and Knicks president Leon Rose were hired away from CAA, the agency that represents Mitchell, to pilot the franchise. And New York’s front office has so far been unable to deliver the All-Star talent coups that organizations expect former agents-turned-executives such as Bob Myers and Rob Pelinka to deliver. The Miami Heat are being mentioned as another franchise that’s closely monitoring Mitchell’s status in Utah.
This is an interesting idea that shows how some things might be handled in the league. Mitchell hasn’t publicly expressed his desire to leave the Jazz, and he’s expressed his loyalty to the team time and time again. Still, we’ve seen players getting tired of their situations and trashing their teams in public, while others decide to trust them and see what they can do if they assemble the right squad. This offseason will be interesting for the Jazz, and we have to wait and see if they split their star duo or focus on only one of them.
