For Gobert, Mitchell (and All of Us), Empathy is the Key to Moving Forward

Utah’s best players have been through a lot in 2020. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

This spring has delivered unprecedented challenges to millions. And yet somehow, it doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that nobody had a March quite like Jazz center Rudy Gobert.

That doesn’t mean that his plight was any worse than the millions who lost livelihoods, loved ones and even their own lives — just that the particular dose of horribleness endured by Gobert is rather unique.

Gobert, like some 1.7 million people in this country alone, was diagnosed with a frightening and largely unknown illness. He wasn’t just the NBA’s first COVID-19 case, but was one of the first prominent individuals in this crisis to hear his medical situation reported by news networks. And as if all of that weren’t enough, at the same time he was dealing with what must have been a scary situation on a human level, he was also being broadly villified for a series of unfortunate mistakes where he poked fun at protective measures, unaware that the virus that causes COVID-19 was already lurking inside his body, preparing to pounce. There is no excuse for those actions, but Gobert isn’t asking you to excuse them, either; he has fully owned his behavior.

In what felt like an instant, Gobert found himself sick, scared — and isolated. His team had to leave him behind in Oklahoma City, and his family was thousands of miles away. As if he didn’t have enough reason to feel alone enough in the days and weeks following his diagnosis, his teammates didn’t exactly rush to publicly support him, either. Most of them stayed silent, but notably, his fellow All-Star went on network television to say that it took him “a while to cool off” at the big man for failing to take the outbreak seriously at first. This led to innumerable column inches, pixels and talk radio hours being dedicated to an alleged “rift” between the two, debates about how the Jazz should move forward if the relationship proved unsalvageable, and of course a host of ridiculous trade proposals that returned the Jazz some collection of middling draft assets and role player pupu platters. And all this happened while, oh yeah, Gobert was still fighting the illness, including by battling new symptoms.

His coach, Quin Snyder, spoke at length with The Athletic about his own leadership and prescience in taking the coronavirus threat seriously. But at least in that article, he didn’t really offer up any supportive words about his All-NBA center. Snyder also failed to publicly address the growing rumors about tension between Utah’s stars. Amid everything else, that silence had to fall rather loudly on Gobert’s ears.

Wow. That’s a lot for a human being to deal with. That must have been an anxious, lonely, challenging period on a human level.

And let’s not forget that all of this happened on the heels of a tumultuous few weeks in Gobert’s line of work, too. The finally-healthy Jazz had wobbled their way through a tough schedule in February, at one point losing nine of 13. Nobody was safe from scrutiny during this stretch, and dweebs like me were quick to point out some of the moments where even the extremely valuable Gobert contributed to the strange winter malaise¹.

Gobert and his teammates were dealing with all of those actual basketball questions leading up to March 11, when suddenly they were dealing with something far weightier. 

So again, while many, many people have had it worse than Gobert this year in absolute terms, nobody has dealt with quite the same challenges he has. It would be understandable if, after all of that, he felt somewhat abandoned by his professional network, and undervalued by fans who instantly went Trade Machine crazy. Honestly, he has a right to feel upset that his teammate went on national TV to scold him, or that others in his locker room stayed conveniently silent.

He has a right to feel whatever he’s feeling now.

Now it would certainly behoove him as a person and as a professional to respond to those emotions constructively. But when you really look at the spring Gobert has experienced and try to process it with basic human empathy, he absolutely has the right to feel a certain way about how events have unfolded.

And so, without a doubt, does Donovan Mitchell.

***

Mitchell’s March took a sharp turn towards scary just a few hours after Gobert’s did. And a lot about what the two men experienced is pretty parallel.

Like the big fella, the third-year guard had to confront a frightening diagnosis at a time when we knew even less about the novel coronavirus that has infected millions around the globe. He, too, was marooned in an Oklahoma City hotel while his friends and coworkers retreated to Salt Lake City. When he eventually did escape, it was to quarantine himself in his parents’ basement. Reminders about his mortality were displayed dispassionately in cable news chyrons while his best professional season yet was indefinitely halted.

Snyder, in the Athletic piece referenced above, provided a glimpse into his All-Star guard’s emotional state. In particular, he said that staying behind in Oklahoma was “the hardest thing” for Mitchell at the time.

“Obviously, there’s the tests and being positive and all the emotion and anxiety that comes along with that. It’s your health, you know?” Snyder said. “Not being able to leave with the group just didn’t feel — you feel like you’re leaving someone behind. It’s not right.”²

So yes, Mitchell too had every right to feel scared, anxious, alone, nervous about his future in and out of the game, and whatever else he happened to be feeling. As someone who had to personally stare COVID-19 down, he even had the right to be upset at those who failed to take the pandemic seriously. It’s completely understandable that he would feel that way. It’s OK that he felt that way. Regardless of how you think he should have handled those feelings or what should have happened next, he is entitled to have an authentic, human response to a scary situation.

I have not been exposed to the coronavirus³, and even I get upset with people who put themselves and others at risk by congregating at airports, pack crowded beaches, or fail to take simple precautions in public settings. If I can feel that way, then someone who has personally battled the virus is entitled to that same exasperation — even if it’s directed (quite naturally) at the person who was reportedly cavalier about the threat inside their own locker room.

We have no way of knowing whether Gobert gave Mitchell the virus, or vice versa, or whether they both got it from some third person or from different sources. And it doesn’t really matter, either. It doesn’t change the emotional calculus here. Mitchell saw people — including his teammate — laughing off the protective measures, and then he got sick. In his shoes, you or I would predictably and justifiably have an emotional response to other people’s carelessness. 

If you can try to imagine what must have been going through Mitchell’s head and heart as he dealt with this crisis in a very personal way, a little empathy will help understand everything that has happened since.

And that empathy is going to be a key for the Jazz to fix whatever may be broken in the relationship betwen their stars.

***

For some reason, fans appear to have a hard time processing the experiences of the athletes they follow through the lens of human empathy. I’m not sure why, but it could have to do with the fact that sports are essentially reality TV in our modern culture.

If you think about it, the role that these guys play in your life is not all that different from how you engage with characters on your favorite show. You turn on the TV for a while, watch these figures wrestle with challenges, with their strengths and flaws on full display. Then you head to the internet to dissect tonight’s episode with a community of watchers who are eagerly following that same show and that same character’s arc. We acknowledge their complexity and progress, but in a more academic way. In terms of how we connect with them, they are Walter White with a 40-inch vertical. Michael Scott with a jump shot. Tony Soprano with handles.

On a certain level, that’s understandable. But it’s important to remember that, on camera and off, these are still real people and not characters of a literary work that exist only for our entertainment and dissection.

And as real people, Gobert and Mitchell endured some undeniably difficult ordeals. 

There are dozens of great books about emotional intelligence and maturity, and they basically outline the same core truths: that we all experience reflexive and almost inevitable emotional responses, and that there’s nothing inherently wrong about feeling a certain way. We should certainly be self aware about it, and we should work to channel those emotions positively and manage the way they impact our behaviors and our relationships. But emotions themselves are not something we should be ashamed of, or hide from.

There is a lot that both of these men could have done differently as they traversed this challenging and emotionally loaded situation. But at the root of all of those missteps is a set of real feelings that it shouldn’t be that hard for us, as fellow real humans, to understand. Detach yourself from the talk radio and Twitter discourse and think about how you would feel if your band of brothers had to flee invisible danger, leaving you behind to sit — sick, scared and isolated — in a hotel room a thousand miles or more from your loved ones.

Or how you’d feel if you saw someone close to you behaving irresponsibly right before you got sick.

Or how you’d feel if your closest colleague threw you under the bus on national television. 

Everything that has happened since makes far more sense if you can imagine how you or I might have felt in those scenarios — and the mistakes you or I might have consequently made under the same stress and uncertainty.

***

The Jazz are just now beginning to come together to focus on basketball and prepare to finish their season, should the NBA decide that it can safely conclude the 2019-20 campaign.

That means they’re also dealing, for the first time now in person, with the realities of whatever has shifted in the relationship between Mitchell and Gobert.

All parties involved are saying the right things — that they’re ready to move on, that the focus now is on realigning around the goal of making Utah a championship contender. GM Dennis Lindsey went further, saying that the two players have already had an opportunity to “say their piece” to one another.

That sounds encouraging. But real healing empathy doesn’t involve simply letting the other person rattle off their side of the story and then considering the proverbial hatchet buried. And the Jazz’s All-Stars, with really only a tiny bit of effort, have an opportunity to do something far more meaningful for their long-term partnership than just “say their piece.”

If Mitchell really thinks about everything Gobert has gone through since March 11, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine and understand the crazy roller-coaster of emotions, including how isolating it must have been for Gobert to hear Mitchell’s public criticisms at a time when the former had already been humbled by the situation and acknowledged his mistakes. He doesn’t have to excuse Gobert’s initial behavior for empathy to kick in and proffer some perspective on everything that has transpired in the relationship.

If Gobert puts himself in his teammate’s shoes, he could easily imagine and relate to the  emotional state that led to the latter’s fear and even the consternation directed back at him. He doesn’t have to like the way Mitchell chose to address those feelings, either. But starting with empathy should put these two men — human beings, first and foremost — on level ground and set the stage for understanding and healing.

If anything, these two should be the best equipped to understand each other’s emotional journeys. 

***

Beyond basketball, a little more empathy could work wonders all the way around.

It has been a challenging year for nearly everybody. Some of us have lost loved ones. Some have had to deal with the virus personally. Some of our jobs or businesses have been impacted by the strain the crisis has put on the economy. We’ve been predictably testy with one another. We can be better, and we can start by understanding each other as people.

Nobody wants more people to suffer or die. Nobody wants to remain in our suspended state indefinitely. Nobody likes having to wear protective gear to wait outside a grocery store. Nobody wants this virus to hang over our collective heads indefinitely.

If someone has a different viewpoint than you about how we as a society should be managing the situation, in most cases it’s not becasue they’re sinister or stupid. It’s more likely because their position is rooted in different (or perhaps overlapping) anxieties.

As an example, take me and Bill (not his real name), someone close to me. Bill and I broadly agree on the seriousness of the threat and the appropriate societal response. But Bill has a business he’s trying to keep afloat, which gives him a whole different set of worries. I don’t. Or a family member, we’ll call her Anne. Anne, like me, wants her loved ones to stay safe and prosper. But Anne lives in a rural community that has been mostly untouched by COVID-19, while my city was the epicenter of America’s pandemic. Bill and Anne are real people whom I love and who ultimately want the same outcomes I want. If they have slightly different (or even very different, in Anne’s case) viewpoints on how to safely move toward normal, it’s because all of these competing challenges weigh a little differently on their emotions and sensitivities.

I forget that. A lot. Not so much with Bill and Anne, because those are people whose relationships are important to me. But especially when interacting with people through a screen, it’s easy to simplify someone else’s viewpoint and assume bad intent. The antidote to that, of course, is trying to understand that someone else’s emotional calculus could just be different by some degree.

***

We may yet see more NBA basketball this summer. We may see the Jazz’s All-Stars come back and thrive on the court. We may even see them repair whatever was broken in their personal relationship and develop an even stronger bond that takes them and the Jazz to new places.

Or we may not. They might just “say their piece,” as Lindsey said, and commit to moving forward despite some hard feelings. And that’s fine too. Because part of empathy is recognizing that they may not be ready yet to really crawl into each other’s feelings and see things from another poinf of view.

But as we seek to heal from this, to pull something positive from the twisted wreckage of an unprecedented set of challenges, perhaps the best way forward — for Gobert, for Mitchell, for all of us — starts with a little human empathy.