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SALT LAKE CITY — Following Naz Mitrou-Long’s near triple-double on Thursday night in the Salt Lake City Stars’ win over the South Bay Lakers, he anticipated a text from current Jazz forward Georges Niang.
He knew it wasn’t going to be about his 20 points or 10 assists or nine rebounds, it was going to be about his seven turnovers.
“We have just motivated each other our whole collegiate career through today,” Mitrou-Long said. “I watch every single (Jazz) game for myself but also to give him pointers.”
Mitrou-Long and Niang have had a long basketball relationship: playing together at Iowa State, on the Stars last season and then over the summer in the Utah Jazz Summer League. It’s a special bond that goes back years, but it’s not the only reason Mitrou-Long feels a connection to the Jazz.
Mitrou-Long has signed his fair share of contracts with the Jazz. He's had training camp contracts, two 10-day contracts, Summer League deals and now a couple of two-way contracts, after signing his second such deal this past summer. He's still waiting to sign the big one, but even as he improves his game in the G-League, the organization has made him feel part of the team.
Last season, players like Donovan Mitchell and Royce O’Neale reached out to him and made him feel like he had a home in Salt Lake. “Especially coming in last year, being a new guy and Donovan having the year he had, and he still, every time he went out, he would hit me up,” Mitrou-Long said.
And that hasn’t changed. Before Thursday’s game, Mitrou-Long got a call from the young Jazz star, telling him he’d be watching. “If he wasn’t, there will be problems,” Mitrou-Long joked.
That type of close-knit team appealed to Mitrou-Long. He felt the Jazz characterized what he loved about basketball: putting the team above one’s self. And that the organization cared for him and wanted to see him develop. He saw that just by how team officials interacted with him — everyone from Dennis Lindsey to Quin Snyder all the way down to his Stars coach Martin Schiller made plans for his success. It's why he chose to sign another two-way contract this summer, again tying him to the organization.
“They are completely involved in everything we do,” Mitrou-Long said of the Jazz’s relationships with the Stars. “You see them around practice in the practice facility. Talk about a GM who is involved as Dennis. You see him every day. You see that they care. … The staff up there and down here, they help me with the same things. It’s a family atmosphere — that’s what they pride themselves on and that's what they really are.”
Mitrou-Long credits the collective Jazz organization staff for his continued improvement. As a group, Jazz and Stars personnel identified things he needed to work on to earn a regular role in the NBA and with the Jazz. That’s their goal for him.
“I am alongside a bunch of guys that believe in me as far as Bart Taylor, Dennis Lindsey, Justin Zanik, Martin Schiller and Coach Quin, them (sic) as a collective have always been able to chime in things to me and they want to see me grow,” Mitrou-Long said. “I have to credit them for the game that I’ve been able to develop and really transform my game."
Schiller said the biggest transformation he has seen is how Mitrou-Long runs the pick and roll. With the Stars, Mitrou-Long has the ball in his hands a lot. That allows him to get live experience running new sets and dealing with different defenses. That can partially explain the high turnovers from Thursday — but that’s also not necessarily a bad thing.
“His assists are great, but his turnovers are too high,” Schiller said. “That’s what this league is about — throwing him into it and getting a high amount of situations and see what he can learn to do. He has improved a lot, and we just keep working.”
And he’s hopeful that one day that work will mean that he’s no longer having to get pregame calls or post-contest texts from his Jazz teammates. They can just tell him face-to-face.
“I think there are a lot of things that I have implemented into my game that the Jazz have been proud of,” Mitrou-Long said. “If I keep doing those things, playing for the team on the front, I think everything will work out.”
