Donovan Mitchell Appears To Have Removed The Utah Jazz From His Socials.....Now Why Would He Do That?

Alex Goodlett. Getty Images.

In today's world, if you really want to know what a player is thinking or what might happen with a player while trade rumors are flying around, you check their socials. It sounds silly, but that's how shit works in 2022. So let me ask you, have you seen Donovan Mitchell's socials lately?

Notice what's no longer there? Looks like a certain someone has removed the Jazz from his profiles, now…why would he do that?

You'll notice he also removed "Former Louisville Guard" from his profile, but that's clearly a smoke screen. Classic Internet 101 move. I'm pretty sure Rudy Gobert did the same shit and we all know what came next, so to see Donovan Mitchell go down the same path is certainly interesting. 

Now you may be under the impression that since RJ Barrett just signed his 4/120M extension that any sort of Mitchell/Knicks trade is dead.

I disagree. For a rebuilding team, I'm not so sure Ainge ever wanted to pay Barrett that money, which is why we always got those reports that the Jazz weren't even interested in a package built around him. The Knicks still have some mid/high salary players they could include in a potential deal, and then you remember the reporting from the weekend that suggested Ainge was interested in the Lakers 2027 and 2029 first round picks and things could be starting to come together. You can make that 3 team trade without needing to include Barrett, so you factor that with this Mitchell move and it feels like we're about to see some shit go down. The Jazz will just waive Westbrook and take the picks, the Lakers get some players to help them in the short term and the Knicks get their star. It almost makes too much sense right? 

If this seems pretty silly, that's because it is. This is what the NBA offseason and trade rumors do to us as fans. We look at EVERYTHING to try and figure out what's going on since none of us have actual sources. We all see the same Shams/Woj tweets. More often than not, a move like this usually means something is going to happen. Considering Mitchell already has the long term deal, I don't see this as some sort of contract negotiation tactic like we did with say Kyler Murray and the Cardinals. If he's staying in Utah and is happy with the Jazz, that feels like a weird move to make by removing them.

You get the sense that we'll see the Shams/Woj bomb any minute considering this is basically the last domino to fall this offseason with training camp opening in about a month. If it doesn't happen and this was all for nothing, so be it. But I'm of the camp that there's some legit smoke here which is usually followed by some legit fire.