Utah Jazz handing reins to rookie Donovan Mitchell: 'I didn't expect any of this'

Sam Amick | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Dunk contest winner Donovan Mitchell discusses his meteoric rise At NBA All-Star weekend, Jazz rookie Donovan Mitchell talks about staying humble while he continues to exceed expectations early in his career.

Donovan Mitchell was in his hotel room in Utah when everything changed.

The Jazz rookie was resting before the next day’s summer league game, his mother, Nicole, and younger sister, Jordan, nearby. He had already started turning heads, the latest showing a 23-point performance against San Antonio the day before. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to earn a significant role as a sixth man for this team that had reached the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2012 just months before.

Then the news came on July 4: Gordon Hayward was headed to the Boston Celtics.

“It was a shock to all of us,” Mitchell, who came the Jazz’s way via the 13th pick after their draft night trade with Denver, told USA TODAY Sports by phone. “It was definitely tough. From that point on, I got a text from (Jazz center) Rudy (Gobert) that was like, ‘Look, we’re going to go out there and do our thing.’ And we were excited.”

Yet even he never envisioned this.

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The 21-year-old Mitchell was named Western Conference Rookie of the Month for the third consecutive time on Thursday, the latest feat in an NBA debut that has been nothing short of stunning. For the season, he’s leading all rookies in scoring (19.6 points) while helping lead a Jazz team that has won 12 of its past 14 games. Entering Friday, Utah — in spite of a slew of injuries to core players and reserves alike — is just two games behind the Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.

As rookie experiences go, this is about as unique as it gets.

From one day to the next, with his Elmsford, N.Y. childhood behind him and those two years at Louisville paving the way for all of this, Mitchell’s role went from supplementary to front-and-center. He had the green light from coach Quin Snyder from the start, averaging 16 shots per game in just his second NBA month while learning how to gain the trust of his older teammates all along the way.

“I didn’t expect any of this to happen,” said Mitchell, who is also averaging 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists while shooting 43.7% overall and 35.2% from three-point range. “But now that it’s here, I expect myself to do a lot more and continue to work as hard as I can to get better and better.”

Utah general manager Dennis Lindsey deserves all sorts of credit, as he not only did the deal — third-year forward Trey Lyles and the No. 24 pick for Mitchell — but set the stage in the weeks before. Mitchell connected with Jazz officials during his Chicago combine interview, as USA TODAY Sports reported, and then made Utah the first workout on his tour soon thereafter – never mind that he was a projected lottery selection and they had the 24th pick.

The Nuggets had expressed interest in Lyles long before that night, making it clear that they saw him as a worthy fit to go with their young backcourt of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris. The two teams started talking around the time Minnesota was up (on behalf of Chicago) at No. 7. The deal was done just a few minutes before No. 13 — and perhaps a new Jazz era — arrived.

“We thought that Gordon would be back, and so when we introduced (Mitchell) to the team, we felt like he could be a little bit like George Hill, maybe a little like Dwyane Wade,” Lindsey explained. “And if all of our free agents stayed, then maybe his first season looks a little bit more like George Hill’s did in San Antonio when we took George (during Lindsey’s time there). But again, opportunity presented itself.

“Instead of trying to make him go through all the rookie rituals that traditionalists would put him through, let’s just embrace where he’s at and have him get better on the fly. We had a few thumbnails during the summer that (showed) maybe he could handle a few more possessions than we originally anticipated.”

Lindsey, like all the rest, isn’t about to pretend that he saw this coming.

“No one could have predicted this,” he said. “I was there. I made the selection, but nobody in my group said he was going to average 20 points a game and be great — at least to date – at helping us in close games from a usage and efficiency stand point in fourth quarters. I think the other surprise is we knew his character, the way his Mom, Nicole, raised him, and certainly Donovan Sr. (who is the New York Mets director of player relations and a former minor league infielder) had him around professional clubhouses, so you could tell he had been mixed in baseball clubhouses, been around a lot of pros. Coach (Rick) Pitino had coached him hard. But you never know how a player is going to be with their coaches and in particular their teammates. And then trying to get a feel for how his teammates would judge him. So I think what the kid has done a really good job of is he’s been authentic and true to who he is, but maybe yet a little bit different.”

To hear his teammates discuss his early evolution is to understand how rare this is.

“The first thing is how quiet and humble he is,” Jazz forward Joe Ingles said. “He's just a normal kid. He's literally just a normal kid who loves playing basketball. That was the first thing I noticed and realized. He's said to me before, ‘I still can't believe what's going on.' He didn't think he'd be (picked in the) first round.

“Even from the start of the season, he wasn't passing the way he's passing (now) at the start of the season. All the credit goes to him for working on it and realizing it. He would come up to me and Ricky (Rubio) all the time and ask us about, 'What are we seeing on pick and rolls?'…He's like that all the time. He just wants to learn. He sits down and watches film with Ricky, about pick and roll, sits down and watches film daily. He tries to get better and better at the things he's not good at.”

Gobert is the first to admit that he’s tough on Mitchell every so often. He calls him out when he takes a bad shot and makes sure he remembers that he’s still a rookie. Still, the 25-year-old is as big a believer as anyone else.

“I had no idea who he was,” Gobert said of his early impressions. “(But) I just liked his mentality. He's a smart kid. He wants to win. He wants to be great, and he's not scared of responsibility. He just keeps getting better and better.

“I’ve told him, 'I said, do you want to be a guy who scores a lot but who never wins anything, like we have a lot of in this league? Or do you want to be a guy who wins, who makes the right play?’ He wants to win. He watches film all the day, keeps improving, and now his decision making is way better. He doesn't turn the ball over like he was, he takes better shots, puts more pressure on the defense, and finds teammates too. He's getting a lot better.”

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