{"id":698619,"date":"2026-04-04T23:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698619\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:13:17","slug":"how-will-proposed-lottery-changes-impact-the-jazz-deseret-news-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698619\/","title":{"rendered":"How will proposed lottery changes impact the Jazz? \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published as the Jazz Insiders<\/a> newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Friday. <\/p>\n

Even after being gone for almost four years, Donovan Mitchell still gets in his feels<\/a> when the Cleveland Cavaliers make their lone annual trip to Utah.<\/p>\n

Having spent the first five years of his NBA career with the Utah Jazz, he still feels a sentimental attachment to Salt Lake City, to the Jazz, to the fans and to everyone in between. And since the Eastern Conference Cavs only travel to Utah once a year, it kind of heightens the emotions and has Mitchell circling the trip on the NBA calendar.<\/p>\n

This year, in particular, was really special for Mitchell, because he was able to bring his fianc\u00e9e, singer Coco Jones, on the trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and my fianc\u00e9e went to dinner with a bunch of my friends who were here, and family, and it was her first time here, so I was kind of showing her where things were at,\u201d Mitchell said on Monday night after the Jazz played the Cavaliers. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018This is what this was, and this was my first apartment,\u2019 all those different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell and Jones have been together for a few years, but Mitchell popped the question last summer<\/a>, so this was his first visit to Utah since preparing to tie the knot.<\/p>\n

After next season, Mitchell will have spent just as much time away from the Jazz as he did with the Jazz. But he doesn\u2019t think that he\u2019ll ever stop feeling tied to Utah and stop having affection for the place where his NBA career began.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always going to resonate, because this is where it started for me,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cUtah has seen me grow to be the man that I am today, and I\u2019m very grateful. So for me, coming back and to see the fans continually wear my jersey \u2014 and I still watch. I know Ace (Bailey), I know Keyonte (George) pretty well. I know some guys on the staff. Hearing (Craig) Bolerjack and Thurl (Bailey) on the broadcast and all those different things, it\u2019s always special.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll never get used to coming into the visitors\u2019 entrance and being in the visitors\u2019 locker room. He\u2019ll always feel a fondness and closeness to the city and everyone that supported him during the early years of his career. And on this trip to Utah, he wanted to share that fondness with the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with.<\/p>\n

While so much is the same and he was able to take Jones to old haunts and show her where it all started, Mitchell did mention that one big difference stood out this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the coolest thing is the arena looks different with the hockey going on and whatnot,\u201d he said. \u201cRyan (Smith) and them have done a phenomenal job with everything in here, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell (45) talks with Gail Miller before a game against the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, March 30, 2026. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News New with the JazzFrom the archivesExtra pointsBez Mbeng to sign with Jazz for remainder of 2025-26 season (Deseret News<\/a>)Kyle Filipowski finding silver lining in juggling two positions with the Jazz (Deseret News<\/a>)Jazz shown that great players do great things and mediocre players do not (Deseret News<\/a>)Around the leagueUp nextApril 3 | 6 p.m. MDT | Utah Jazz @ Houston Rockets | KJZZApril 5 | 5 p.m. MDT | Utah Jazz @ Oklahoma City Thunder | KJZZApril 7 | 6 p.m. MDT | Utah Jazz @ New Orleans Pelicans | KJZZApril 10 | 7:30 p.m. MDT | Utah Jazz vs. Memphis Grizzlies | KJZZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was first published as the Jazz Insiders newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,305,193,3846,6,1111,722],"class_list":{"0":"post-698619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","12":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-news-feed-local","15":"tag-newsletters"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116348979307598190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}