Donovan Mitchell is one of the best young players in the NBA, he’s led the Utah Jazz to become a perennially excellent team in the Western Conference, especially in the regular season. While he has been impressive enough to have earned three straight All-Star selections, his Jazz team haven’t been able to translate all the talent at their disposal to postseason success.
The Jazz have won just 2 playoff series in the time that Mitchell has been a part of the franchise and have never made it beyond the semifinals of the Western Conference. This isn’t entirely on Mitchell, but as the star of the team alongside center Rudy Gobert, it has certainly raised his level of expectation in terms of what he hopes to achieve during his career in the short term. Mitchell told Yahoo Sports about his ambitions in the next 5 years, after which he will be 30 years old.
“An NBA champion — that’s the goal. MVP is the goal. Hopefully, more than one of both. That’s the goal. Multiple championships. I want to win. That’s what I strive for. Every morning I wake up, every time I work out, we want to win a championship. How do we go about doing that? How can I be the best Donovan that I can be for my team and go out there and compete and win? So if you don’t see it for yourself, then you’re never really going to get there.”
Mitchell hasn’t been on an MVP level this season but he certainly is close to it, averaging 25.5 points and 5.1 assists per game for the Jazz. The worst stretch his team had this season came when he was out, Mitchell missed 8 games for the Jazz towards the end of January. As the 4th seed in the West, the Jazz will be hoping that Mitchell can go off in the playoffs once again, and can lead them to their first conference finals since 2007.
