Donovan Mitchell Says He'll Try to Recruit Paul George to Jazz in Free Agency
Donovan Mitchell plans to put his recruiting knowledge to use with some of the NBA's biggest free agents this summer.
"I was the lead recruiter at Louisville. I think I signed four or five guys before I left," Mitchell told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on The Woj Pod (h/t Salt Lake Tribune's Aaron Falk). "I think I can recruit some guys. Coach (Rick Pitino) and coach Kenny Johnson taught me some things."
Specifically, Mitchell said he plans to get in touch with Paul George and pitch him on playing with the Utah Jazz.
"He's due. I think it's July 1," Mitchell said. "I'm definitely going to have that conversation.
"Why not play with us?" he added. "You look at how we move the ball. We play with guys who don't care who scores the most, who rebounds the most. ... We play with guys who genuinely want to win."
Appealing as the Jazz may be with a core consisting of Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Joe Ingles and Ricky Rubio, they haven't been linked to George to this point in free agency.
The most prominent suitors thus far have been the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers, as Wojnarowski outlined on ESPN's NBA Draft: On the Clock special (h/t LakersNation.com):
"Oklahoma City has done a great job on selling him on a future there. He liked playing with Russell Westbrook, Steven Adams and Billy Donovan. They have a real opportunity to keep him, but the Lakers are home. He grew up in L.A. and when he left Indiana, his plan was that he would be in L.A. in a year. So you have to credit Oklahoma City for really turning his head on that. … And Houston will be aggressive to try to see if there’s a way to get him there."
Still, that's not likely to dissuade Mitchell in his quest to add a championship-caliber piece to the puzzle.
"You can only imagine what we’d be able to do if we had that one big piece," he said. "It would be great. If not, like I said, we trust our abilities to do well. But it would be great to have that one piece like you’re talking about."
