The Utah Jazz’s overstuffed backcourt has been one of the central storylines of the team’s training camp and preseason.
However, while much of the focus has centered around their ongoing efforts to determine whether they have a viable lead guard on the roster, an additional component of the conundrum is the simple math problem of finding enough minutes on the court for all the players who warrant them.
Head coach Will Hardy is experimenting with a novel solution, though.
If there’s not enough playing time for everyone worthy in two-guard lineups … well, just play three- and four-guard lineups.
In Saturday night’s exhibition vs. Portland, and then again Monday vs. the New Zealand Breakers, the Jazz toyed with on-court groupings featuring either Walker Kessler or Kelly Olynyk or Lauri Markkanen alongside 6-foot-2 Collin Sexton, 6-3 Kris Dunn, 6-4 Keyonte George, and 6-5 Ochai Agbaji.
It’s a unique approach to accounting for the team’s depth disparity between the backcourt and frontcourt.
“Nothing that we’ve thrown out is, ‘Spin the wheel and just see what happens,’” Hardy said. “We think through it, and we think there’s positives and negatives to every group, and we want to see what they look like. That group is something that we’re obviously considering. … We’re just trying to get our best guys on the court.”
To that last point, Utah’s collection of bigs is actually more settled than their guard counterparts, with All-Star Lauri Markkanen, new addition John Collins, and Kessler firmly entrenched as the starters, and Olynyk solidified as the top backup. Beyond that quartet, however, No. 9 overall pick Taylor Hendricks appears a ways off from being rotation-ready, Simone Fontecchio has not commanded a role, Luka Samanic is on a nonguaranteed deal, and Omer Yurtseven is merely a journeyman depth piece.
Among the guards, meanwhile, each of those aforementioned four has a compelling case for minutes — and that doesn’t even take into account the two players who started in the backcourt agains the Blazers, Jordan Clarkson and Talen Horton-Tucker.
So it was that there were stretches featuring three or four of those guards in at a time.
It’s not a new concept to the rookie George.
“If you go back to [my time at] Baylor … we would play three-guard lineups, so this is nothing different,” he said. “The habits that I picked up at Baylor, the habits that [coach Scott] Drew instilled in me kind of carry over to that lineup, what I have to do at that certain point in the game, so that’s not an adjustment at all. I’m used to crashing [the boards] or being that bigger guard that has to help the big rebound.”
For others, like Sexton, it was a new experience, but something he took in stride.
“At the end of the day, it’s just basketball,” he said. “Whatever. It could be four or five bigs out there, I’m gonna play.”
Well, probably not in five-big lineups, but you get his point.
After Sunday’s practice at the Zions Bank Basketball Campus, two of the bigs who anchored those four-guard units gave their perspectives on the pros and cons, and how their own responsibilities are impacted by playing alongside such a height-deficient group.
Olynyk in particular likes the offensive possibilities that the lineup provides.
“It’s a different look, obviously, for defenses to have to guard [against] four guards — the floor space, everything’s wide open, it gives everybody lots of room to pass, cut, move,” he said. “Obviously, rebounding is a big key in those stretches and those lineups. But it just gives the defenses a totally different look; they probably can’t guard the same way they guard the rest of the game, so they have to make adjustments, do different things, and change the pace of the game a little.”
Kessler also touched upon the rebounding component, but added that in this era of so-called positionless basketball, it’s potentially not as substantial a problem as you might think.
“I know there’s a big, big commotion about four guards and me playing in there. … All those guys are not really going to stray away from any physical contact, especially on the glass, so I think that if we can become more of a habitual team crashing with that lineup, there’s not necessarily a disadvantage,” he said. “Obviously covering the four [position] is a little tougher. But I think that if you go against a team that doesn’t necessarily have a strong four — like Golden State, for example, they have Klay Thompson at the four now — it can be advantageous.”
Despite Kessler’s stated confidence in their rebounding proclivities, the Jazz’s guards — and head coach — did acknowledge that hitting the boards would have to become more instinctual.
Sexton said it was a less a matter of sending the entire group crashing to the glass and more focusing on technique and simply boxing out. Hardy added that he and the coaching staff would be looking at ways to tinker with the defensive schemes to put the smaller players in better positions to be successful on the boards.
Despite the coach’s adamant statement that the team would strongly consider using such lineups come the regular season, it may ultimately not amount to all that much.
After all, it’s not as though the Jazz are going to go significant stretches without playing the 7-foot Markkanen and 6-9 Collins, who are big, physical, athletic shooters who make the team better by being on the court.
Still, there may be a time and place for it.
The rebounding issues notwithstanding, that group does bring some unique traits to the floor, with Hardy bringing up the ability to pressure the ball defensively, and then offensively, creating advantages off the dribble, and Sexton invoking “an advantage of speed, ability to get downhill, and just pretty much make plays.”
Agbaji, meanwhile, noted that it’s all a part of the chess match of responding to a unique five-man group with one that can exploit its weaknesses.
“If you see a big lineup, you can throw some more guards in there. And then, you see a small team, you throw big guys in there,” he said. “We’ll have it to our advantage when it’s that group of guys.”
