Will Hardy was at Donovan Mitchell’s Connecticut home on July 1.
The newly appointed Utah Jazz head coach, was just beginning to make the rounds, reaching out to Jazz players to discuss the upcoming season.
“I look at it as a win-win. Everybody is flourishing, doing well, happy. Sometimes that’s just what you need.” — Donovan Mitchell
The two, who were already acquainted because of their time spent with Team USA, were in Mitchell’s backyard, talking about how to make everything work, when their phones started buzzing — the Jazz were finalizing a deal to trade Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Suddenly, everything that Hardy and Mitchell were talking about seemed irrelevant.
“It was wild,” Mitchell said on Monday morning ahead of the Jazz’s first game of the season against the Cavaliers. “It was wild how it happened.”
The Gobert trade made it crystal clear that the Jazz were going in a new direction. But it would be two very long months before Mitchell would learn his own fate — that he was being traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Despite knowing that there was a good chance Mitchell wasn’t going to be on the Jazz’s roster for the 2022-23 season, that didn’t stop Hardy from staying in contact with the All-Star guard.
“Odds are I’m probably not going to be at camp,” Mitchell said. “But because of the person that he is, he’d text me every so often — What are you doing to get in shape? Are you in your best shape? — That’s why I’m not surprised at how well these guys are playing, how hard they’re playing. He did that with me and it was a pretty good bet that I wasn’t going to even be on that team.”
It’s been a bit of a strange season for Mitchell. That he is not in Utah anymore, that he has a new team, that the way he plays and approaches things had to change, that he had to adapt to a new system, that everything around him is different. It didn’t all sink in at once.
In fact, it all sinks in a little bit more each day.
There are little reminders of how much things have changed every time he sees old teammates — Joe Ingles in Milwaukee, Bojan Bogdanovic in Detroit, Gobert in Minnesota, Royce O’Neale in Brooklyn — when he sees members of the Jazz’s coaching staff or different personnel with new teams, when the Cavaliers faced the Mavericks and he thought back to how the Jazz failed once again in the postseason and how everything came apart after that series.
Mitchell said seeing the Jazz, watching film on them in preparation for Monday night’s game makes it all sink in a little more, but he thinks going to Utah, when the Jazz will host the Cavaliers on Jan. 10, and eventually seeing Quin Snyder in person (the two talk here and there) will be the times that it all hits home.
In the meantime, Mitchell has tried to use everything that he learned in Utah and make the most of his new situation, which has worked out pretty well. Mitchell is having a career year with the Cavaliers, averaging bests from both a production and an efficiency standpoint.
Although it was disappointing how everything ended for Mitchell in Utah — continuously falling short in the postseason, the tension in the locker room, the way that it eventually felt like the team had just run out of answers — it seems that all parties involved have come out on the other side in a better place.
No matter who you ask, from Danny Ainge, to the player, to every fan watching the Jazz last season, it was obvious that there was a lot of joy missing, and that the team, as constructed, had run its course. Now it’s obvious, even to Mitchell on the outside looking in, that things in Utah are better.
“I look at it as a win-win,” Mitchell said. “Everybody is flourishing, doing well, happy. Sometimes that’s just what you need. For both sides, I mean you look at (the Jazz) — I don’t know what the vibe in that locker room is — but from the guys that I’ve talked to it seems like just a fresh breath.”
Mitchell wasn’t sure on that day in July if he was going to remain in Utah. He was legitimately trying to think of ways to make it all work. That’s why Hardy was at his house, planning for the upcoming season, with the three-time All-Star.
Maybe change was necessary.
Maybe Lauri Markkanen needed a new team to be able to have a breakout season, maybe Collin Sexton needed a change of scenery to carve out his role in the NBA. Maybe Snyder needed some time away from the game, maybe this was the perfect time for Hardy and Mitchell and Gobert and everyone else to grow in a new way. Maybe it was what everyone needed to be able to move on in a positive way.
So far, so good.
