It’s time to face the music. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are a duo more at odds than both Salt Lake City and jazz. Always has been, is and always will be. Their partnership contains more personal drama than group success. An oversized ego isn’t suitable for playoff wins. Great partnerships require synergy, and elite players have the power to work well together. Jazz’s top two players always lack a spark.
During the regular season, Utah’s stifling defense and slick attacks have made up a fair share of the highs, such as their NBA-best 52-20 record in 2021. Eventually, their two stars started to deflect again, and another early playoff exit soon followed. After a five-game losing streak, the Jazz allowed the Warriors to go 18-0 in the fourth quarter in the waning minutes of the 107-111 loss. Gobert and Mitchell did not give the impression that they were about to get over the hump.
Reports have swirled around the season that Mitchell has his eye on the New York Knicks. Jazz has Mitchell under contract through the end of the 2025-26 season after agreeing to a five-year, $163 million extension two summers ago.
Gobert averaged 15.3 points per game with a career-high 70.9 on-field goalscoring rate, career-highest rebounds rate. For the third time in six seasons, Gobert is on track to lead the league in the number of times an offensive player sets up a screen for a teammate directly leading to that teammate’s goal. However, the Gobert-Mitchell two-player game is purely one-way.
Mitchell shared the floor for 1,152 minutes together and passed the ball to him 151 times. For comparison, Jayson Tatum has edged Robert Williams 228 times, Devin Booker has edged Deandre Ayton 361 times and Trae Young has recorded 152 support for Clint Capela in 472 turns. Mitchell and Gobert choose-and-Roll is technically the NBA’s most effective since Mitchell is one of the NBA’s top scorers in the league, but he and Gobert have always behaved like two aliens from different planets who are Struggling to communicate.
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In the five years since Mitchell arrived, the signals about their incompatibility have only grown more pronounced. The Philadelphia 76ers nearly waited until it was too late to break up the Simmons and Embiid pairing. The Mavs acted quickly, jettisoning Kristaps Porziņģis to the Wizards.
After serving as the force behind the French National Team’s silver medal in Tokyo’s Olympics, Gobert has been as underutilized as ever within the Jazz offense. A classic combo guard, big man combo should be more simpatico on the floor together, and it’s not like they clog the floor operating in each other’s areas of strength.
Instead, opposing teams have been able to throw the Jazz defense off-kilter by throwing small-ball units on the floor, leaving Gobert glitching out on the perimeter. Gobert’s low-post game has no seasoning, and he never developed a go-to post move or a soft touch despite his 7-foot-9 wingspan. In crunch time, when those small-ball five lineups are on the floor, Gobert cannot punish them for gambling. Consequently, Mitchell doesn’t even look for him in clutch situations.
This was on display while the Jazz blew a 16 point fourth quarter lead against Golden State on Saturday night.
David Thorpe once described Gobert, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, as a hammer that derives its efficiency from blunt force. He could thrive as that blunt instrument on a unit that features two dominant perimeter shot creators like the Mavs, Bulls, or the Clippers. The Celtics’ Robert Williams regularly scoring off a series of lobs and putbacks are the template for what Gobert could be in a more harmonious setting. Gobert averages just 1.0 point-per-own on post-up, ranked 50th in the NBA. Playing on the flanks like Luka Doncic, who is enough of a player and goalscorer for the two stars, and Spencer Dinwiddie, will unleash his potential as a man of the game.
Gobert and Mitchell both deserve prosperity. Personally, they’re great, albeit a bit 2-D superstars. Together, they corrode each other. The music has to end soon and Utah needs to deal with it before they end this cycle next season.
