The Utah Jazz won their first playoff game of the postseason against the Dallas Mavericks away from home. Normally, this would be an excellent result for the Jazz, but the fact that they did it so unconvincingly when the Mavericks were missing their only superstar in Luka Doncic, has somehow raised more questions than it has answered about the Jazz.
The team has not made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs with their current core for the last 5 seasons. They have been great in the regular season, but the playoffs have seen them crumble time and time again despite some heroic performances from Donovan Mitchell. So if they somehow lose against the Mavericks this season, there will be serious question marks about whether they should keep their stars together.
And Jalen Rose has some advice for the Utah Jazz if they do decide to blow it up. Rose seems to think that this is the only reasonable thing to do as well, seemingly suggesting that the Jazz would prefer to keep one of their stars over the other.
“If you’re the Utah Jazz, you not trading Donovan Mitchell. You’re trading Rudy Gobert.”
Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell have had controversy surrounding them for ages now, with lots of speculation about their relationship. Gobert recently spoke about how they both share the same goal of bringing a championship to Utah, but that seems very unlikely with the way they have been playing this season.
Mitchell is younger and more marketable than Gobert, and his game translates to the playoffs in a major way as well, but Rudy is a one-of-a-kind defensive presence in the paint. If they do decide to blow it up, the choice will be hard for the Jazz, and whatever decision they take could affect the franchise for years to come.
