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Donovan Mitchell: baseball star?

NBA pickup games, Spida homers, and a day with Grayson Allen - It’s your Monday Downbeat.

NBA: Playoffs-Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Dante Exum and Rudy Gobert were featured in a 12+ minute YouTube video getting some runs in against guys like Kevin Durant and Paul George. You can tell Dante’s been really working on his shot form and Rudy remains as Gobert-y as ever. You always hear about these legendary offseason pickup games amongst NBA stars, but to see such a lengthy insight into one of them seems rare. It’s worth a watch.

Rudy and Dante weren’t the only ones getting offseason runs in last weekend. Donovan Mitchell and Royce O’Neale were also spotted in Houston playing with Chris Paul and James Harden, among others.

The fact that Royce O’Neale was involved in this is encouraging to me. Even just providing what he did last season makes his contract one of the best values in the NBA, but if he continues to improve? It could take Utah’s squad to the next level.

Surprise, surprise. Mitchell’s not just good at basketball. Spida and O’Neale also participated in James Harden’s charity softball game while they were in Houston. Mitchell showed off his swing, hitting a couple of home runs during the exhibition.

Yesterday was Jazz Day on NBATV. Trust me, the irony of them doing that on a Sunday is not lost on me.

Nevertheless, the day was packed with classic Stockton and Malone performances and wall-to-wall Jazz highlights, which is kind of fun. They also ran a Jazz uniform poll, the results of which I found interesting. Looks like the new City uniforms have pulled even with the old purple mountains in popularity, according to this very accurate scientific method.

The NBA social media team posted several videos Saturday with Grayson Allen in his hometown.

You can check out the rest of that content on the NBA’s Twitter account or by searching #ADayWithGrayson on Twitter. Get to know our newest rookie a bit better. My favorite bit was here, where he explains that he used a box as a spring board in his childhood driveway to dunk before following that up with this tweet:

One last fun little clip to wrap it up today. I present to you: Young Quin Snyder.