1. Mitchell was not in NYK all summer. He spent a lot of time in Miami, even playing Miami Pro-Am games.
2. Just because CAA represents Woj does not mean everything that involves CAA clients from Woj is a lie. There can be wording that spins things to be more favorable, but the facts are the facts at the end of the day. Woj has to keep relationships with all teams. Him flat out lying wouldnt help him curry favor with the Jazz, who he has always had a good relationship with in the past. I get the Spooky Mulder X-Files conspiracy theories, but they dont always exist.
I'm not saying everything is a lie. I'm saying he has a history of doing damage control/PR spin for his friends and smear jobs for those he's not in good relations with. In general I trust him with verifiable information, I don't trust him with "NYK offered the world in July and Utah refused" report in September. Just ask yourself - in whose interest is it for this to be out there in September. Who the hell cares what NYK offered in July in September after a deal falls through. This was one of his very first tweets after he was done with the details of the deal. It's so obvious Rose called him and told him this for damage control. This was not some report coming days or weeks after the deal when he's done some reporting and asked around about how negotiations developed over the summer. This was tweeted an hours if not minutes after the CLE-UTA deal.
Because it makes more sense to me and it's supported by NYK insiders who reported that offer as something the Jazz were asking for and NYK refused at the time it was happening... rather than when PR spin was needed... TWO MONTHS AFTER.3. How are you deciding what is a spin and what isnt a spin? Maybe all the reports about them not wanting to include RJ was the spin.
At the end of the day we will never really know what was offered and when. The only thing we know for sure is that NYK signed RJ Barrett one day and the next day the Jazz accepted the CAVs offer.4. It also makes sense that Utah rejecting that offer led to a lot of the early reports of Utah not being interested in RJ.
At the end of the day I can only go off common sense and the amalgamation of everything that was reported by the generally reputable sources.
It makes sense that Utah was declining solid offers early in hopes to get a better offer. IT makes sense that NYK would offer RJ. It makes sense that NYK was playing hardball and reducing the offer as time went on and it seemed like no one else was seriously joining the race.