Talk about a wild rumor.
The Utah Jazz trading Donovan Mitchell to the Cavaliers was pretty surprising to anyone who was paying attention to the Mitchell trade rumors. For the most part, the Knicks remained the clear frontrunners. In the wake of the surprise trade, a lot of speculation took place, dissecting what led to Mitchell ending up in Cleveland. One theory is that the Jazz front office, frustrated with the Knicks executives over things such as showing up to their playoff game, took a lesser offer from the Cavaliers out of spite.
“According to Ric Bucher of Fox Sports, the Jazz sent Mitchell to Cleveland out of spite. Bucher claims that Jazz brass were upset over Mitchell’s trade request and they wanted to get back at him somehow. Sending him to the Cavaliers was a way to do that especially since Mitchell wanted to go back home closer to New York.”
Utah executives are shooting that one down, ESPN’s Zach Lowe said on the Lowe Post Podcast with Ian Begley (hat tip Real GM).
“I’ve seen some reports, forgive me I can’t remember who, said ‘Well, the Jazz were upset Donovan Mitchell maybe wasn’t all-in forever with Utah and as punishment we’ll send him to a place he doesn’t want to go do,’” said Zach Lowe on his podcast.
“Emotions can play into this. I’ve been assured by the Utah side that ‘No, look, we’re mature people. Yes, we were upset with particularly the Mavs’ game incident, but we’re not going to make decisions based on those kind of things that now happened four months ago or whatever. We’ve made the best deal possible.’”
The Utah Jazz made their decision and went for the volume of picks farther out. It will be years before we know if this trade pans out for the Jazz.
But the very idea that a team would trade a player out of spite is kind of comical.
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