Stephen A. Smith has done it again. He has triggered people with another incredible hot take probably meant to make older fans of the NBA shake their fists and yell at the clouds. In a recent appearance on ESPN’s Get Up show, Smith ran to the top of the nearest hill, thumped his chest several times, before shouting something about Donovan Mitchell:

“I don't wanna hear about Karl Malone, I don't wanna hear about John Stockton. [Donovan Mitchell is] the best player in the history of the Jazz organization.”

You don’t even have to be someone in his 30s or 40s to detect even just a hint of craziness from what Smith said. At the very least, you would want to seek a better context of his opinion because everyone who heard it should demand why all of a sudden he’s thinking Donovan Mitchell is the GOAT in Jazz franchise history.

You could even make a case that Mitchell isn’t the best Utah player since he entered the league in the 2017-18 NBA season. Even better, there’s a separate winnable argument about Donovan Mitchell not even being the Jazz’s best player at any season since he turned pro.

In both arguments, Rudy Gobert is the name that should be favored. So, okay. More on that later. But we just have to be a bit fair here and let Stephen A. Smith expound on his take, as transcribed by Ben Anderson of KSL Sports:

“Donovan Mitchell is D-Wade 2.0,” Smith said making the comparison between the Jazz guard and team owner Dwyane Wade. “Donovan Mitchell is a closer, Donovan Mitchell is a superstar. Donovan Mitchell is outplaying both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Not one or the other, both of them.”

That’s obviously not enough reasoning to have Donovan Mitchell perched on a higher place in the all-time Jazz players rankings over Karl Malone and John Stockton. Stephen A. Smith can’t be unaware that Malone is a two-time NBA MVP who’s also still second on the all-time scoring list. Smith can’t say he’s a sports journalist as well if he didn’t know that Stockton is the all-time leader in assists and steals, in both stats he leads the second-placer by miles.

Donovan Mitchell has a long way to go and we mean A VERY LONG WAY TO GO before he could jump in front of Stockton and Malone, and that’s even if the Jazz win the franchise’s first-ever NBA championship this season —  something that the legendary Jazz pair failed to deliver in all their years in Salt Lake City.

It’s easy to get awed by Donovan Mitchell. After all, he’s the most electric player on the Jazz ever since his first season in the league. But Gobert has simply made a bigger impact on Utah. 

In four seasons with the Jazz, Donovan Mitchell hasn’t even led the team in win shares. In every one of those seasons, it’s Rudy Gobert who paced the Jazz in that statistic. It’s not the be-all and end-all type of stat that will decide who the better player is, but it surely tells a lot about who’s more valuable.

Donovan Mitchell’s easily the superior shot-creator than Gobert, but since 2018, the center has higher offensive win shares (25.4) than the guard (9.8). The Jazz also generate more offense when Gobert is on the floor, as he owns a 130 offensive rating in the same span. Mitchell, on the other hand, has an offensive rating of 108. Quite a disparity over there.  As for the defensive rating, Gobert’s is at 101 to 108 by Mitchell. No surprises there. 

When Gobert got signed by the Jazz to a five-year extension that’s worth $205 million in December 2020, many thought Utah got swindled when in fact, the Jazz locked up one of the best impact players in the NBA.

No one creates so much on both ends of the court for the Jazz than Gobert. His game is more subtle and takes a deeper understanding of the game to be fully appreciated, but opposing players surely have lots of stories to tell about how Gobert altered what would have been a gimme layup, or how Gobert’s mere presence in the middle forced them to pull back than attack the rim. There's a ton of points Gobert has saved for the Jazz. 

Gobert is everywhere on the floor, particularly on defense, able to guard multiple players and zones at the same time. On the other end, he’s so efficient. So far in his career, he has a 66.2 TS% and a 64.5 FG% while just having a usage rate of 16.1. 

So yes, Stephen A. Smith is wrong. Donovan Mitchell is a fantastic player. I would prefer to watch his highlights over a video anatomy of Gobert’s defense. But at the end of the day, he’s not better than John Stockton, Karl Malone, or Rudy Gobert.