Donovan Mitchell has confirmed his status as a great NBA star after scoring 71 points against the Chicago Bulls. This amount is an all-time franchise record in Cleveland, the second highest score of the 21st century and the second most points generated in a game by a player behind only Wilt Chamberlain.
However, it is not the only reason why the Cavaliers guard has been in the news recently. Mitchell was transferred to Ohio at the beginning of last September after a long soap opera that lasted all summer and that returned information from different fronts and with, at times, opposing positions.
On this occasion, the journalist from ESPN, Brian Windhorst, has been in charge of shedding a little more light on the process that led to the departure of Mitchell, from the point of view of the player himself. According to him insiderthe guard ended the season very frustrated by the elimination of his team in the first round of the playoffs and the transfer of Rudy Gobert to Minnesota led him to cut ties with the franchise interpreting that he would be next, which is how it finally happened.
“Mitchell was angry at the end of the season. Angry that the Utah Jazz had a disappointing year,” Windhorst said. «Angry by the reports about relationships with teammates. Angry that the team was planning a rebuild that included getting rid of him.” […] “When it became clear that his days in Utah were numbered after the Jazz traded Rudy Gobert on July 1, Mitchell canceled his plans to join the team for Summer League workouts in Las Vegas and went to Miami. »
In the same way, it hurt Mitchell to see how big names from other teams did receive individual considerations that he, another year, resisted. “I had seen how some of his rivals grew up around him. Devin Booker in Phoenix. Ja Morant in Memphis. Jason Tatum in Boston. Bring Young in Atlanta. These guys were included in the team All-NBA and Mitchell doesn’t.
However, Windhorst emphasizes that Mitchell’s disconnection responded to the need to isolate himself from everything after so many emotions and that he never completely closed off the possibility of wearing the Jazz jersey again, despite having refused to train with his teammates.
“I didn’t know where I would end up [..] but I knew that I wanted to return with a different energy. During those two months she trained harder than ever. He even went on vacation to a resort 5 star that had a basketball court. She was a mental, physical, and emotional cleanse.”
Overcome all this oppressive scenario, Mitchell smiles again and thus confirms that he needed a change of scenery to recover his spark. Something that the journalist David Locke had already shared after his transfer: the escort was completely exhausted and overwhelmed by everything that being the great star of the Jazz meant, including all the rarefied social climate surrounding the state of Utah.
(Cover photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
