Utah Jazz, Joe Ingles and Donovan Mitchell garner national attention

Between an ESPN article and a pair of stories from USA Today, the Utah Jazz received a lot of love from the national media today.

Utah Jazz fans are all too familiar with the fact that as a small market organization, it’s not all that common for the team to garner national headlines. Of course, rookie sensation and recent Dunk Contest champion Donovan Mitchell has helped remedy that somewhat this season as he’s been placed at the center of several Rookie of the Year conversations all year long.

Other than his ascent to stardom, though, the Jazz typically fly under the radar without garnering much attention outside of the Salt Lake City market. That was far from the case today, however, as the Jazz received some love in a trio of stories from national news outlets.

And the first one focused specifically on a Jazzman extraordinaire. No, it wasn’t the highly touted Donovan Mitchell, instead it was the ultimate Jazz cult hero himself Joe Ingles.

The piece was written by ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and centered on how Utah’s ‘Average Joe’ is anything but average. It’s a great read describing all the finer things that Ingles brings to the Jazz both on and off the court that you can find via the link in the tweet below:

Aside from being an excellent read, it also provided us with an all-time great quote from Rudy Gobert describing Joe Ingles: “He’s just a smart basketball player with a big mouth and an Australian accent.”

Considering Joe’s typical dry humor that he uses to bash his teammates, this was a spot-on crack by Rudy Gobert that perfectly describes Ingles in a nutshell.

The second eye-opening Jazz piece that hit the web today was from USA Today’s Sam Amick, who was quick to admit himself that it was a bit of a rarity to see two national outlets give the Jazz so much love on the same day:

Amick took a close look at how the Jazz have managed to survive this season and set themselves up for an incredible future despite losing their All-Star in Gordon Hayward this past summer. Most teams, especially small market teams, would collapse after losing their star player as the Jazz did. Instead, Utah has been able to bounce back in a big way (thanks largely to Mitchell) and is still well within striking distance of a playoff spot.

His piece, which you can access via the link in the tweet above, was absolutely sensational, but I think what I enjoyed the most was his dialogue on Dennis Lindsey, Quin Snyder and the Jazz brain trust’s fascinating approach to switching gears following the departure of Gordon Hayward. As Amick stated, although Jazz brass had every right to bemoan the situation, rather than do so, they instead pivoted, adapted and focused on how they could still build a sensational team.

And while there’s still work to be done, there’s no questioning that the Jazz are certainly on a favorable trajectory. That’s largely thanks to the amazing play of Donovan Mitchell, who Amick wrapped up his first piece talking about in detail.

But he was far from done there, as later in the day, Amick produced yet another piece of content for USA Today focusing solely on electrifying rookie Donovan Mitchell. Once again, you can check it out yourself via the link in the tweet below:

Sure, I’m a homer, but once again I felt this was a fabulous read, giving us further insight on Donovan Mitchell and how he’s even exceeded his own expectations about his first year in the NBA. There were plenty of memorable quotes in the article, but these two particularly stuck out to me. First from Dennis Lindsey:

"“No one could have predicted this. I was there. I made the selection, but nobody in my group said he was going to average 20 points a game and be great – at least to date – at helping us in close games from a usage and efficiency stand point in fourth quarters. I think the other surprise is we knew his character, the way his Mom, Nicole, raised him, and certainly Donovan Sr. (who is the New York Mets director of player relations and a former minor league infielder) had him around professional clubhouses, so you could tell he had been mixed in baseball clubhouses, been around a lot of pros.Coach (Rick) Pitino had coached him hard. But you never know how a player is going to be with their coaches and in particular their teammates. And then trying to get a feel for how his teammates would judge him. So I think what the kid has done a really good job of is he’s been authentic and true to who he is, but maybe yet a little bit different.”"

Then this one from teammate Joe Ingles:

"“The first thing is how quiet and humble he is. He’s just a normal kid. He’s literally just a normal kid who loves playing basketball. That was the first thing I noticed and realized. He’s said to me before, ‘I still can’t believe what’s going on.’ He didn’t think he’d be (picked in the) first round.Even from the start of the season, he wasn’t passing the way he’s passing (now) at the start of the season. All the credit goes to him for working on it and realizing it. He would come up to me and Ricky (Rubio) all the time and ask us about, ‘What are we seeing on pick and rolls?’…He’s like that all the time. He just wants to learn. He sits down and watches film with Ricky, about pick and roll, sits down and watches film daily. He tries to get better and better at the things he’s not good at.”"

I don’t know how it’s possible, but if you didn’t like Mitchell before, how could you not after hearing what those closest to him have to say about him on and off the court? Similarly, I’ve thought on several occasions that I couldn’t possibly love Donovan Mitchell any more than I already do, yet once again as information such as this comes out, I find myself being proven wrong.

So while it’s not everyday that the Jazz get mentioned on national news, in fact, it hardly ever happens at all, every once in a while they get days like this where they’re the talk of the town. And, man, is it ever fun!

Next: Utah Jazz vs. Minnesota Timberwolves: Keeping the dream alive

And I have a hunch that with the likes of Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles, Rudy Gobert, Quin Snyder and Dennis Lindsey running the show for the Utah Jazz organization, their spotlight is only going to grow. There’s a lot to love about this team both on and off the court and, along with a potentially exhilarating finish to the 2017-18 season, the team appears to be on the cusp of greatness moving forward.

It’s a fun and exciting time to be a Jazz fan, and I have a feeling that the team is only going to go up from here.