While No. 9 pick Taylor Hendricks and No. 28 selection Brice Sensabaugh missed Monday night’s Salt Lake City Summer League opener for the Utah Jazz, No. 16 pick Keyonte George was happily playing.
Given that his role is arguably the most ambiguous of the highly anticipated trio, he’s looking forward to simply getting on the court at the Delta Center — and subsequently in Las Vegas — and trying to figure it all out.
“Just going out there and finding my niche. What’s my role today for the team?” George replied when asked what he hopes to accomplish during summer league play. “If my shot’s not falling, what else am I gonna do? Each and every day, learning what it takes to win in a pro setting.”
He did, in fact, bring up winning games on multiple occasions. So while some may approach these contests with something of a laissez faire attitude, the former Baylor guard is bringing a competitive streak.
In Monday’s opener vs. the Thunder, George overcame a nondescript, foul-plagued first half and imposed his will a bit in the second, finishing with 18 points (on 7-for-16 shooting, including 1 of 4 from deep), five rebounds, four assists, and three steals — and just one turnover — as the Jazz fell 95-85 to OKC.
“Especially in the second half, he just played free,” said Jazz assistant Evan Bradds, who’s leading the summer league team. “He moved the ball around the court, he got into a little rhythm, took some shots that I thought were really good shots, and he got better as the game went along.”
There remains plenty of work to do, of course.
And yet, he comes into the summer having already done quite a bit. Jazz general manager Justin Zanik praised him on draft night for the work that the 6-foot-4 guard did on his body during the predraft process — work that George explained recently after a summer league practice.
In high school, he played at around 190 pounds. In college, he was generally around 210 or 215. Now he’s back down to 190. And he can feel the difference.
“I was a little bit heavier. That’s no excuse at the end of the day, but you see the change, and now I feel great,” George said. “I definitely like it. I feel lighter, [I’ll] be able to cut faster, [be] faster downhill. Those are the main differences I see, but also being able to play above the rim, get higher now. The change in weight has been good for me.”
That will make some difference in his game.
What will be just as important will be development of his on-court feel, and his situational awareness.
“Everything has to be sharp, everything you’re doing has to be with intention — you have to have a plan,” George said.
His shooting was infamously inefficient at Baylor owing to an unnecessarily high degree of difficulty on many shots. He also had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio, which is hardly ideal for a player that Zanik hopes can be a lead guard at some point.
Some of his miscues have at least become painfully obvious to him in hindsight.
While he partly attributes his less-than-stellar shot profile to the physical limitations he faced owing to a late-season ankle injury, he also conceded that, even before that, he could have been more discerning.
“[I needed to be] trying to get downhill more. … Just making sure I get downhill more, get fouled, get to the free-throw line — that’s where your rhythm comes in,” George said. “That should have been more of a point of attack going into those games, rather than trying to settle for the trey ball.”
While George said that his favorite player growing up was Russell Westbrook, the NBA guy he’s been watching most of late is Denver’s Jamal Murray.
Notably, George is interested in the angles he both creates and attacks, when he chooses to go downhill, how he’s able to get to his spots, create for his teammates, what his shot profile became in the playoffs vs. the regular season.
George believes that his own shooting and passing ability will translate well to the NBA game because of the additional spacing. He’s also liking his chances to continue generating open looks with his ball-handling, crediting extensive work with the heavy ball for his excellence in that area.
He’s already impressed some of his new teammates.
“He’s very fast, his change of pace is crazy,” said forward Luka Samanic. “And, you know, he sees the floor very good, too.”
Those two connected on George’s best play of the night, as the guard baited a Thunder player into a bad pass, then he garnered the steal, turned on the jets, and fired a pinpoint bounce pass to the cutting Croatian for a layup.
While the speed and shiftiness are there, he’s now aiming to add some muscle (without packing those extra pounds back on) for the simple reason that, “Guys are much bigger, much stronger — I’m playing against grown men.”
Of course, he does have a little extra time to do that now that he’s in the NBA.
“No school work, it’s straight basketball,” George said, smiling wide.
So he’ll still be absorbing copious amounts of new information, it’ll just all be of the hoops variety.
That, at least, will enable him to try and keep his approach simple.
“Stacking days, finding my rhythm, finding where my spots would be. It’s been a learning experience,” he said of his early days with the Jazz. “Living in the gym, making sure everything is up to par when it’s time to live in between those lines.”
He was thrilled to be doing that on Monday night — his first 5-on-5 action since his last game at Baylor.
Once he worked out the jitters of playing in his first professional game, it got a lot easier.
“Man, it feels great to play some basketball again,” George said.
