Gordon Monson: '[Donovan] Mitchell is fully aware the Jazz need a superstar to succeed. And he wants to be that dominant force. But he’s not there, yet.'
He has the ear of Ryan Smith and the team is eager to consider Mitchell’s thoughts on matters of all kinds.
I’m no psychologist, but I don’t think his attempts come from a bad place. Mitchell is fully aware the Jazz need a superstar to succeed. And he wants to be that dominant force. But he’s not there, yet. On occasions, he can do it, but he has not done it consistently enough to elevate himself into superstardom.
He might as well have had an office built onto his personal space in the Jazz’s locker room, with a desk, a phone, filing cabinets, a big screen on which to study film, a computer, a coffee machine, and all the accoutrements attendant with a vice president in charge of advising. Power comes with the idea that fans fill the arena not to directly watch a club president or vice president or a general manager or coach do his job, although each greatly enhances the overall success and enjoyment of the product, rather they come to watch the player excel at his. It’s sports’ appeal to the customers.
Owners, and thereby VPs, GMs, and coaches, must give berth to their exceptional performers, if they already are in the fold, and that includes enabling them to have their way sometimes.As tough and respected a man as Sloan was, a Jazz coach of that era told me back then that if Malone had gone off about something he felt deeply about, barking at the respected one, Jerry would have shrunk away. Hard to imagine, in his younger/tougher years, but that’s what the coach said.