At Thursday’s Jazz practice, Donovan Mitchell was lamenting the non-COVID illness he suffered last week that prevented him from playing in the All-Star Game. He said he made the trip to Cleveland, but when he started not feeling well, the league told him to just stay in his hotel room.
So he did, and he watched the game and the NBA75 festivities on TV.
Which piqued my curiosity: “Which broadcast did you watch?” The normal play-by-play on TNT? Or the chaos of the “Inside the NBA” crew — and injured Warriors forward Draymond Green — on TBS?
He chuckled and replied: “I watched the regular TNT one. But I know what you’re getting at.”
During the second quarter, the TBS crew was discussing some of the NBA’s defensive standouts over the years, and Kenny Smith mentioned Green and Jazz center Rudy Gobert together, prompting Green — who has taken myriad bizarre shots at the three-time DPOY in recent years — to angrily lash out: “You keep mentioning me in the same sentence with him. We’re not alike! … We ain’t nothing alike!”
So I asked Mitchell about that exchange.
“I don’t think nothing of it. It is what it is,” he said. “I think if you ask Rudy the same thing, I’m pretty sure he’ll say the same thing. [Green] has his opinions, everybody’s gonna have their own opinions. It doesn’t really matter.”
I also asked him about a RealGM article that examines why Rudy seems to be so disliked by other players around the league, and he replied that he believes that situation and others tend to be small situations the media blows up into bigger ones.
“Being in this for five years … a lot of this stuff is a lot more external than it may seem,” he said. “… For instance, they were all at the All-Star Game, they were all getting along in the locker room. If it was really that way, that wouldn’t be the case. You saw KAT [Karl-Anthony Towns] and Jimmy [Butler] on the same team. A lot of this stuff is for the fans.”
Mitchell’s missed NBA75 moment
While Mitchell was sad not to play in the game, there were two things about his ill-timed illness that bummed him out more. First, he was supposed to be one of the current NBA players reading an on-court tribute to the league’s top-75 players of all time. Second, he had been looking forward to meeting his hoops idol, Michael Jordan, in person for the first time. That marked the second time in his life a potential meeting with Jordan fell through:
“I go back to a draft story. I was supposed to go to Charlotte, I was supposed to be on the Hornets. At least that’s what I was informed. So I thought that’s where I was going to be. … I was going to go back for a second workout, and Mike was going to be there [as the Hornets’ owner]. But the stars didn’t align. It would have been great just to meet him. I played his tapes growing up. I watched ‘Unstoppable,’ ‘Michael Jordan’s Playground’ … there’s all these ones I probably still have on VHS somewhere in storage. So it would have been pretty dope to meet him.”
Joe Ingles talks surgery, return
The former-Jazz forward called in to “DJ & PK” on 97.5/1280 The Zone (where he had a longstanding weekly spot) on Thursday to discuss the ACL injury he suffered on Jan. 30, his trade from Utah, and his comeback plans. Among the highlights:
• He had his surgery done Wednesday morning in Chicago; the procedure took all of 45 minutes, and it confirmed there was no structural damage in his left knee other than the ACL tear.
• He was accompanied by a member of the Blazers’ medical staff, who would begin his rehab with some basic ankle and knee movements. Joe is planning to return to Utah on Saturday, and has “lined up probably the best [physical therapist] outside of the Jazz.” He’ll then split time between Salt Lake City and Portland.
• He acknowledged being a bit hurt and disappointed when the trade happened: “There was a lot of feelings, just sitting there with Renae … just trying to process the whole thing because I just never honestly never thought we would go through it.”
• As a result, it’s not a fait accompli that when he makes his comeback, he’s destined to sign with the Jazz. He could re-sign with the Blazers: ”I can’t say enough good things.” Or, he could wind up literally anywhere: “I want to go to whoever, wherever it is. I’m going to leave every option open, I am going to listen to whoever wants to talk to me.”
HBTJ podcast
On this week’s podcast, we hand out awards for the first half of the NBA season and look ahead to the playoff push.
Find the HBTJ podcast at sltrib.com/podcasts/bout_jazz/
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