Donovan Mitchell has no time to entertain buzzes about his name.
And the star shooting guard is undeniably frustrated about how the recent talks surrounding his future suddenly floated amid the Utah Jazz’s current struggle this season.
Asked on Saturday about his sentiments regarding ESPN‘s report wherein he wants to play for a big market team, Mitchell offered some heavy words that the rest of the NBA world has to ponder if a player, together with his team, is on a slump of defeat.
“Y’all like to talk a lot when we lose. I don’t understand,” Mitchell stated, via team insider Ben Anderson. “Y’all like to just keep all the negative stuff when we start losing, when we’re winning there’s nothing said.”
“We’ve got to go, we’re trying to win a championship, so I just cut you off and answer that right there, that’s the goal and we’re not going to stop until we do. We have a great group of guys and this stretch doesn’t dictate who we are as a team.”
Upon Rudy Gobert’s absence due to COVID-19 protocols, Utah went on to a rocky road — struggling to sustain winning ways and the menacing defense as the Memphis Grizzlies have come up for the third-seed of the highly-competitive Western Conference with a 30-15 record.
Recently, Gobert hit the Jazz with plenty of shady bombs of criticism after his return, saying that the team still hasn’t been on the winning level of the Golden State Warriors and Phoenix Suns while not playing defense seriously.
“When I watch some of these other teams like the Suns or the Warriors, those guys are a step ahead in terms of winning habits,” Gobert said, via Eric Walden. “They take every game personally. Devin Booker is playing his ass off defensively… Guys like that, they buy in, and you can tell they take pride in playing defense and stopping their man, doing whatever they can defensively to stop the other team and be part of a winning culture. I think we’re not there yet, but I think we’re gonna get there.”
But from the perspective of Mitchell, he has nothing to be worried about this statement by the reigning Defensive Player of the Year — and it is a matter of addressing the issue as a group.
“I think we all as a group find ways to hold each other accountable, that’s just his way about it, I guess,” Mitchell said. “I’m not really concerned about it. At the end of the day, we’ve got to all find ways to get better, that’s really it. We all have individual ways of doing it and his just happens to be this way.”
The Jazz will look to snap its four-game losing skid as they face the visiting Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
