Jazz Notes: Mitchell, Gobert, Favors

While Jazz fans watched Gordon Hayward exit for Boston this summer, rookie Donovan Mitchell is doing everything in his power to help them move on, Michael Scotto of Basketball Insiders writes. Mitchell has not only thrived in his first season but stepped up as an immediate core piece capable of making a serious impact on games.

Over the course of the last 11 games, Mitchell has averaged 20.2 points, 4.5 assists and 4.0 rebounds. That’s been good enough to help the Jazz win seven of those contests and their last five consecutive.

Scotto writes that Michell’s emergence as a building block for the future will help the franchise turn the page from the Gordon Hayward Era.

There’s more from Utah:

• There’s a chance that Jazz center Rudy Gobert will be back in action Monday night, Eric Woodyard of the Deseret News reports. Gobert has missed the last 11 games with a knee injury.
• There’s no denying that the Jazz are built around center Rudy Gobert but Derrick Favors has filled in admirably for his injured teammate over the course of the past month. “I just want to basically come out and show everybody that I’m back. I’m 100 percent now,” Favors told Eric Woodyard of the Deseret News. The 26-year-old former third-overall pick (and pending free agent) was once regarded as part of Utah’s future core but he has failed to stay consistently healthy throughout his seven-year career.
• Several members in the Jazz organization had a feeling that Gordon Hayward wouldn’t be returning to the squad via free agency last summer. As Zach Lowe of ESPN details, center Rudy Gobert took notice when Hayward uncharacteristically stopped responding to text messages prior to his final decision.