Donovan Mitchell gives advice to upcoming rookies

The 2018 NBA draft is just 2 days away, with the Utah Jazz still slotted at #21. A lot of young players are excited about their new journey, and Donovan Mitchell was asked to give them all some advice while he was making a trip for Adidas in the Philippines.

Have fun. I had fun the entire year. Understand that mistakes are a part of it. At the end of the day, it’s just basketball. We’re blessed to play this game, have this talent and these skills. So have fun, and act like you belong. If you don’t act like you belong and you don’t show that confidence -- there are guys who thrive off of that, you can’t back down.

He gave some other great quotes that you can read, like his about his approach to film study, or his thoughts on super teams. I’m sure you’re looking for more Jazz things to read. Go. Click. Read.

Speaking of the draft, Sports Illustrated recently put together an article on draft night, but from the agents perspective.

There are five minutes in between each first round pick being announced, meaning there are over two hours from the No. 1 pick in the draft until the last pick in the first round. For a player and his agent this time feels like an eternity. The uncertainty of where the player will be drafted can be gut-wrenching. Naturally, the NBA has limited the number of players invited to the green room to about 15 in an effort to avoid the dramatic scenes of players being visibly upset on camera. It is human nature to want more and generally players expect to be on the high side of their draft range. Emotions are running high and when a player begins to slip in the draft, often times he will get frustrated with his agent.

In these moments of panic the agent is often times on the phone. But who is the agent speaking to and what is he saying? An agent will call teams that have upcoming picks to try to figure out if they intend to select their player, if any trades are in the works, or just to gather any relative information to relay to the player and his family in hopes of relieving some of the tension. At this point, a player and his agent have already done 99.9% of the work toward getting drafted. In most cases, these calls are only for show or out of desperation.

There are some situations in which an agent will make a call during the draft to lobby against a certain team selecting their player in order for their player to fall to a team that they prefer for whatever reason. For example, I was told a story directly from a high-ranking team executive that he had received calls during the draft one year from a prominent agent before making a lottery selection. The agent had threatened to ruin this executive’s career if he selected his player. Well, that team selected the player and the executive still works for his same team years later.

There’s a whole lot more there and it was a pretty interesting read, especially with the draft coming up. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it as well.

bnumerich over at Detroit Bad Boys has assumed role as GM of the Utah Jazz and needs your help in making offseason decisions! Click here for the details.

nkeith looks at FA’s for Utah:

I don’t tink it is realistic to expect Durant or James to sign with Utah, although they would be great fits. I also believe Utah can afford to sign Derrick Favors, Dante Exum, and one of the four FA’s mentioned... I think the chosen free agent, Favors, and Gobert can also share the PF/C minutes and get 30+ min each...

Yi Of Little Faith looks at the NBA Draft and the rumors surrounding the Memphis Grizzlies:

Rumor has it that Memphis Grizzlies want to prioritise dumping Chandler Parsons who has $50 million left on his contract running until the end of 2019/2020 season. The Grizz have the 4th overall pick in this draft and this should be available as part of the package...

This isn’t directly Jazz related, but I think it would interesting to hear what all of your thoughts and ideas were here. Oladipo was treated as a throw-in with the trade between the Indiana Pacers and OKC Thunder. 1 year later and he was potentially the Most Improved Player of the year and was a member of the Easter Conference All Star team.

So SLC Dunk, I ask you, what players out there do you believe could become the next Victor Oladipo? What player has been misused or will be a late bloomer that Dennis Lindsey could target?

I apologize ahead of time for the memories of pain and sorrow that I’m about to bring back. Danny Crawford, yes that Danny Crawford from that game from that push off came out and talked about Michael Jordan’s shot among other things.

“Those fans are some of the toughest fans in the NBA back then. They’ve mellowed out somewhat, but they’re still a tough group, they’re still a tough crowd. Back then, when Karl Malone and [John] Stockton and those guys were playing, that was one of the, if not the, toughest places to referee in. You can imagine how it was in an NBA Finals game,” Crawford told Yahoo Sports. “The way they screamed at the refs, they were not nice people, because they were crazy about their Jazz. So, you’ve got an intense game. You’re in a building that’s one of the toughest crowds in the NBA, and you’ve got a close game, and it’s Michael Jordan and the Bulls, and Utah played them in some tough, memorable Finals games. It would test your courage.”

“From my vantage point, I just saw Michael going hard and I saw him stop on a dime and Russell was retreating,” Crawford told Yahoo Sports. “An offensive player always has an advantage because he knows when he’s going to stop and he knows when he’s going to go real hard. The defender is trying to guess what the offensive player is going to do. Obviously, I saw Russell still going backwards a couple more steps and Michael pulls up and shoots the shot.

“You have one-tenth of a second or two to make a decision, and it all depends on if you clearly saw the whole play,” Crawford told Yahoo Sports. “That was in transition. So in a transition play, everybody is busting their butts to get up the court. So, your eyes are bouncing. It all depends on how early you got to whatever happened to determine if you’re going to blow the whistle on something you saw — not thought you saw — that you saw. And it wasn’t an egregious play where you thought, ‘Oh, no. You can’t do that.’ It was a tough play that could go either way.”

Blah blah blah I mean he pushed off right? Right!? RIGHT!?

Ok, I’m going to need a minute while I go and watch highlights of Donovan Mitchell to feel better...