The Jazz wound up losing Friday’s in-season tournament game to Phoenix, 131-128. That dropped Utah’s record to 4-8, including 2-1 in the tournament.
Despite the loss, Friday’s contest was a good showcase of how well Utah’s offense has been clicking since making a couple of changes to the starting lineup, writes Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune.
The first change came by choice, with first-round pick Keyonte George replacing Talen Horton-Tucker at point guard. The second choice came out of necessity — Walker Kessler is sidelined with an elbow injury, and head coach Will Hardy decided to add more spacing by starting second-year wing Ochai Agbaji.
George has averaged 11.0 points and 8.3 assists over his four starts, while only turning the ball over eight times. According to Larsen, the 20-year-old has an impressive two-man game with Jordan Clarkson, who has been on an absolute tear since the change was made, averaging 31.5 points on .552/.445/1.000 shooting over the past four games.
Having a strong floor general and five shooters on the court has created room for Clarkson and Lauri Markkanen to operate, Larsen notes, with John Collins sliding up to center after Kessler was injured.
Here’s more on the Jazz:
- In the same story from Larsen, Hardy said he’s not sure who will start once Kessler returns. “We’re not exactly sure when Walker will be back, but it’s gonna be a big decision for us,” he said. “What we do with the lineups — you know, we always get caught up talking about the starters — but I think we’re just going to have to figure out how to blend it all together. Nothing’s really off the table at this point. … Offensively, you know, we have seen a pretty good flow right now. It’s been good for John. But Walker also hasn’t played a ton with Keyonte. So it’s hard to say right now.”
- There haven’t been any rumors linking Zach LaVine to the Jazz, but Tony Jones of The Athletic considers the pros and cons of the team making a run at the two-time All-Star, writing that Utah hopes to return to the playoffs sooner rather than later, which is why the team was in the mix for Jrue Holiday before he was sent to Boston. Utah’s young core and strong offense could be good fits for LaVine’s game, but giving up assets to acquire a player on a long-term max contract who isn’t known for his defense may not appeal to the front office, according to Jones.
- While George, who was selected 16th overall in June’s draft, has been seeing heavy minutes for the Jazz, that hasn’t been the case for fellow rookie Taylor Hendricks, who was the ninth selection. Sarah Todd of The Deseret News takes a look at the development plan for the team’s lottery pick, who has opened the season in the G League with Utah’s NBA G League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars.
Starting George, who is a point guard, at point guard, instead of someone who is not a point guard and has never played point guard before, in Horton-Tucker, makes a difference. Who would have guessed?
Same as the nonsensical situation in San Antonio where Popovich, out of some reason that only he understands, starts Jeremy Sochan, who is a PF, at point guard. And doing this when SAS has a starting-caliber PG in Tre Jones. He was their starting PG last year, and, well, he IS a PG, while Sochan is not. I know he’s injured at the moment but still, this is a perplexing situation for me.
Yeah I don’t understand Pop, I thought he was a smarter coach but his lineups are complexing. The other day he had Sochan at PG(who should be playing PF), Champaign at SG(who is a SF), Keldon Johnson at SF (who should be playing SG), Wemby at PF (who should be playing C) and Collins at C(who should be the first big off the bench) All they need is another PG prospect and change the lineup. Come on Pop. If they really want Wemby at PF then find a young center to develop next to him with Sochan at the SF spot.
Perplexing*
Pops rotation makes sense…
He’s trying to see what he can get out of the oddball lineups and see if he can teach them to fit…
As well as trying to get another high pick to play alongside VW.
Agreed. A PG who can space the floor and/or penetrate at a high level would transform this team. Hopefully that will come from the draft, but if not the team still has plenty of future assets to dangle in trade talks.
George wasn’t a PG at Baylor. He was a score first SG. He averaged 2.9 turnovers to 2.8 assists in his season there.
It’s not nonsensical if you’re trying to play the long game, which fans rarely are patient and/or sensible enough to entertain.
As unlikely as it might be, if Sochan can develop into the PG of the future he would significantly raise the team’s ceiling relative to Jones. Worst-case scenario, he develops some skills that will help him in a secondary playmaking role down the line. This year is all about experimentation. Wins and losses are secondary, whether fans like that or not. And that’s how it should be if your goal is to win a championship within a few years rather than settling for ending up as a good-but-not-great team.
As for George, as a non-lottery rookie it’s understandable why Hardy may not have wanted to start him from the get-go, but he had to deviate from that given THT’s significant struggles. It’s a balancing act between on-court performance and whatever plan the coaching staff would’ve initially had for any given young player.
I’m no expert Old Dave but I think it has a lot to do with teams moving to positionless basketball where it’s more about movement, motion and flow than it is about who brings the ball up court or who the offense runs through in the initial setup. It’s not a new thing by any means, LeBron has acted as defacto point guard at times for many years. But I think sometimes these coaches try to be too smart and too cute with lineups and end up hurting themselves. It’s one thing for to have LeBron play some point and handle the ball extensively. It’s quite another to have a guy like Horton- Tucker do it. The skill level just isn’t the same.