The Utah Jazz have had their fair share of struggles to open the new campaign — something that the critics have been so willing to point out of late. For superstar shooting guard Donovan Mitchell, the 23-year-old believes that this is exactly the type of fuel he needs to motivate himself even more.

“Same thing that got me into the league — people saying what I couldn’t do,” Mitchell said, via Michael Lee of The Athletic. “I’m not going to lie to you and say I don’t hear what’s going on. You hear people on social media and whatnot. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t define me. I’m going to do what I can do. And my teammates believe in me. I can say, ‘Yeah, I’m out to prove people wrong.’ But they’re always going to nitpick and find something wrong with my game. They still do that to Bron and KD, guys at the peak of their games, so I’m going out there and playing my game. Trying to push through adversity.”

Mitchell is currently averaging a career-best 24.5 points (on 43.5 percent shooting), 4.8 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.4 steals, while also connecting on 2.3 3-pointers per game on a 36.9-percent clip. These numbers are pretty much identical to his production last season, so it's really hard to say that the 6-foot-1 guard is currently going through a slump.

Nevertheless, Mitchell remains unfazed by all the criticism, even using it as his primary motivation to do even more.

“I’ll figure it out,” Mitchell said. “If I rely on the expectations that are expected of me, I would drive myself nuts. I just go out there and hoop.”

Such are the high expectations on this young man, that people almost assume that he is going to make vast improvements every single year. This hasn't exactly been the case early in the season, but given Mitchell's unwavering self-belief, it would not be surprising if the former Louisville standout lives up to these expectations sooner rather than later.