Since 2020 and Rudy Gobert’s positive COVID test, the first in the NBA, it is said that relations between him and Donovan Mitchell are strained, hence the bad results Jazz in the playoffs. But the full-back just made a big reveal about it.
Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell were perhaps not made to be teammates… Despite their talent, despite the numerous selections for the All-Star Game, despite the quality of the workforce around them, they never managed to carry the Jazz high enough. If the regular seasons have always been good and promising, they have all too often collapsed in the playoffs. Since the start of the school year, they seem much more fulfilled, far from each other.
Donovan Mitchell powered the @cavs to victory dropping 32 PTS! #KiaTipOff22
🕷 @spidadmitchell: 32 PTS, 9 REB, 8 AST, 4 3PM pic.twitter.com/01PhIDce36
— NBA (@NBA) October 23, 2022
Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert brought closer by COVID
But during his recent appearance in JJ Redick’s podcast, the back obviously returned to his Utah years and therefore to the duo he formed with the pillar of the France team. And he made a rather shocking revelation, since it goes against everything that has been said about Jazz in recent years. They were visibly getting along better than ever since the COVID crisis.
To be very honest our relationship has improved after the COVID episode. Because I finally started to understand when he was talking to me, what he wanted to say to me. I think we found ourselves better on the pitch and the team was better. I think the relationship between Rudy and I has been seriously exaggerated in the media.
According to many sources, the friendship between Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert would never have been the same after the episode of COVID, when the French pivot became the first positive case detected in the league. Following this defining moment in the recent history of the league, their relationship was scrutinized and scrutinized, even the number of passes they made to each other was analyzed.
But according to the new Cavaliers player, he and his former teammate would never have been closer than after this incident. He even believes that the team was better from 2020, although this has not been felt in the results. They may never go on vacation together, but they get along much better than what was reported in the media.
Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell got along much better post-COVID than before, as all of America’s media claimed the opposite. The sporting failures were more the result of an incompatibility than of a real enmity between them.