Don's Value

[Saint Cy of JFC]

When it comes to the playoffs he’s a top-3 player though. He is an extremely efficient scorer in the playoffs.

It's such a small sample size it's hard to really rank him (like are you seriously saying you'd take him over Lebron/Curry/KD?), but I would agree he's been one of the most impressive players the past two playoffs in limited time. He's had 6 playoff series thus far in his career. 2 being absolutely insane, 2 being very good, and 2 being very bad. It just sucks every year Utah has bad luck with injuries and missed games.

 

[Elizah Huge]

It's such a small sample size it's hard to really rank him (like are you seriously saying you'd take him over Lebron/Curry/KD?), but I would agree he's been one of the most impressive players the past two playoffs in limited time. He's had 6 playoff series thus far in his career. 2 being absolutely insane, 2 being very good, and 2 being very bad. It just sucks every year Utah has bad luck with injuries and missed games.

It is a smaller sample size but in his last 17 playoff games total which is a pretty decent amount:

He is averaging 33.9 PPG and an absolutely insanely efficient 49.1% from 3 on 9.9 attempts per game.

Curry hasn’t even made the playoffs the past two years and I would definitely take Donovan over what LeBron gave in the playoffs this year.

The only players in the conversation who have played as good is Durant and Giannis.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Donovan is a top-15 player in the regular season and a top-3 player in the playoffs. What that equates to as a whole and what it equates to as overall best players I don’t know.

 

[LogGrad98]

Donovan Mitchell is a top 10 NBA player. I don't think there is any doubt of that now. If anybody questions that, then they are undervaluing him. He simply takes over playoff games unlike almost any other in the league. With Conley or without, he's still dominant. With or without Bojan, he was still dominant. His numbers this postseason were completely off the charts. His postseason output his first 4 years are unlike almost any in the history of the game.

When we have a great season, the narrative is always centered around Rudy. And in many ways, rightfully so. We build the whole thing around Rudy and it works in the regular season. When our system gets blown up in the postseason either by personnel or coaching, Don is still dominant. Actually, he's even more dominant. He literally carries us.

Without Paul, Booker couldn't lead his team anywhere. SGA is a solid player, but he's throwing up stats on a joke team.

Watch a Jazz game. We constantly run things away from Don. For Conley. For Joe. For Rudy. And that's fine in the regular season. But some playoff time, we turn to the guy who can get it done. And we still haven't even built the whole thing around him yet. Just imagine if the team reflected an emphasis on Don like it has been Rudy.

Don is undervalued because most people around here still think our chances of a title revolve around Rudy. They are wrong.

No regular season success revolves around Rudy. Championship aspirations revolve around Mitchell. But neither is possible at all without the other.

 

[LoPo]

No regular season success revolves around Rudy. Championship aspirations revolve around Mitchell. But neither is possible at all without the other.

So far, we have put a defensive squad around Rudy and people complained that we couldn't score. Then we put an offensive squad around Rudy, and people complained that Rudy was the only defender.

I guess we have to shoot for a perfect roster around Rudy with 2 way players. But realistically, we build it around Don in the future and we have regular season and postseason success.

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[NUMBERICA]

So far, we have put a defensive squad around Rudy and people complained that we couldn't score. Then we put an offensive squad around Rudy, and people complained that Rudy was the only defender.

I guess we have to shoot for a perfect roster around Rudy with 2 way players. But realistically, we build it around Don in the future and we have regular season and postseason success.

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I still strongly disagree with this narrative that the players you use to build around one or the other are mutually exclusive. None of the meaningful pieces used in this build are themselves problematic*, rather, it's that there is no depth or versatility to it. Additionally, half of the players in the roster are not on Don's timeline, but I'm not sure that's a problem of Rudy's. In either case, the Jazz should put a premium on players that can spread the floor AND play defense but the Jazz have basically ignored this aspect since the splurge in 2019.
I'm not married to keeping Rudy, but the reason for trading him is not that the players useful in building around him would hamper building around Don, it is that this build has crested and there isn't a way to believably, meaningfully improve without breaking up some of the big pieces.

And some of the big pieces are old. And that's a problem either way.

*This doesn't apply to Favors because he is not a meaningful player IMO and his major problem is his contract, not his play.