What we talk about when we talk about Jazz: the Loveless Marriage of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert

The following is a work of fiction in the style of Raymond Carver

My friend Rudy Gobert was talking. Rudy Gobert is a two-time defensive player of the year, and sometimes that gives him the right. 

The three of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin. Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big window behind the sink. There were Rudy and me and his partner Donovan – Donnie we called him.

There was an ice bucket on the table. The gin and the tonic water kept going around, and we somehow got on the subject of the Utah Jazz and success. 

Rudy said real success was nothing less than winning an NBA championship. He said he’d played for four years in France before declaring for the NBA draft. He said he still looked back on those years in France as the most important years in his life. 

Donnie stared into his glass, turning it slowly. Rudy was standing now, his shadow cast over the table. 

Donnie said his college team, before he played with Rudy, was the best team he’d ever played with. Donnie had played at Louisville for two years and he’d always love those guys. 
“But what did you win?” Rudy asked. 

Donnie leaned back in his chair, arms folded. 
“Why’d you have to touch those microphones?” Donnie asked, staring into his drink. “Why’d you get me sick?”
Rudy waved a hand the size of a phone book, “everyone got sick” he said. 

“I was the only reason we won any fucking games in that bubble. That bubble they had to set up because you made them shut down the league.”

He asked me what I thought about success. I didn’t answer. Maybe we were a little drunk by then, maybe I was prying on a moment, unwelcome company staying too late. 

“Why don’t you ever speak out for me? Why do you just let them rag on me? I do everything I’m supposed to – I pick up the slack when you let guys run past you. I’m the only one that’s actually won anything”.
 

Donnie looked up for a moment. He emptied his glass and turned it over on the table.
“It’s all relative – success,” he said “there’s plenty to achieve in this league”. 
“Like rookie of the year?” Rudy asked. 
“There’s plenty of teams who had success without without a championship”
 

Rudy sat back down at the table. He crosses one leg over the other. It seemed to take him a lot of time to do it. Then he put both feet on the floor and leaned forward, elbows on the table, his chin cupped in his hands.  “I don’t want to hear about John and Karl again” he said.

Rudy poured himself another drink. He looked at the label closely as if studying a long row of numbers. Then he put the bottle down and slowly reached for the tonic water.
 

“I don’t blame you for what happened in Los Angeles,” said Donnie. He reached across the table for the ice bowl, knocking over Rudy’s glass. 
“Are you drunk?” Rudy was standing again now, his clothes damp. 
“I don’t have to be drunk to tell the truth”
“So do it,” Rudy said. “Tell the truth”.