If someone potentially gave me a deadly disease that could have killed me, I might be reluctant to be friends with them going forward as well.
I wouldn’t consider this breaking news from The Athletic.
As it turns out, that was also the day Gobert had his regrettable moment, touching the microphones of media members as he left his press conference after the morning shoot-around. It was a bad move, a practical joke gone wrong that was, in part, poking fun at the league’s new policy of keeping reporters six feet away from players during media interviews at that time.
But in the wake of all those COVID-19 lessons, it made it even harder to understand why he would do such a thing. What’s more, it wasn’t just the public who deemed his attitude toward the coronavirus irresponsible. There were members of his Jazz family who were disappointed by the message he was sending.
As the Tuesday afternoon trip commenced, teammates noticed Gobert coughing and showing the effects of whatever ailed him. Some of them encouraged him to treat his illness, prodding Gobert to skip the conventional medicines and teas and head straight to the trainers for a coronavirus test, according to sources. Yet Gobert, who believed he felt good enough to play in the Wednesday game against the Thunder, clearly didn’t see his symptoms as severe enough to warrant such a reaction.
In the two travel days leading into Utah’s game at Oklahoma City, Gobert and Mitchell shared space on a regular basis, sitting near each other on buses and the team plane, according to sources. Still, there’s no way to know if Gobert gave it to Mitchell or if it was the other way around or some other factor. That’s something the team tried to make clear to Mitchell, according to sources. Mitchell also declined an interview request for this story.
Flip the page to see why Mitchell doesn’t want to be bothered with Gobert going forward.
