The aspect of the Utah Jazz’s last two seasons that frustrated hardcore fans more than anything else was a lack of consistent direction.
To begin both years, the Jazz were competitive, fighting for every win. They sent their youngest players down to the G League or didn’t play them at all, while veterans like Mike Conley, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Kelly Olynyk, and Simone Fontecchio sponged up minutes. Then, at the trade deadline, the front office traded those players, as the team decided to tank for draft positioning.
The result, besides whiplash? The dreaded NBA middle: a record well outside of a playoff spot, but not bad enough to land the kind of draft picks that can immediately lift a team out of a hole.
Head coach Will Hardy said things are going to be different this year.
“Going into this season, I think our vision is very clear: This is an opportunity for us to really invest in our youth,” he said as training camp began this week.
Yes, there’s a subtext there: Winning games is not the absolute priority for the Jazz this season. Faced with the choice between the veterans who were likely to win games and the young players with significant but hopefully removable warts, the team largely chose the latter. Whether that is enough to deliver a top pick in the upcoming loaded 2025 NBA draft is to be determined.
But the actual text of Hardy’s quote is just as true, and definitely more immediate. Through the next three weeks of training camp and preseason, and for the 82 games after that, the Jazz legitimately do want to prioritize developing their young players. Perhaps just as importantly, they want to learn about their players’ games. Coaches know that the hit rate on draft picks isn’t especially close to 100%, and that it’s likely that half, perhaps even a majority, of their young players will find themselves out of the NBA before they hit the 10-year mark.
Utah’s youth movement
The most established young players are third-year center Walker Kessler and second-year guard Keyonte George. Both have shown an NBA skill that tantalizes — for Kessler, his rim protection, for George, his high-volume shooting — but both lack real consistency night to night.
“What separates the best players in this league from everybody else is that their floor is so much higher, their average game is so much higher,” Hardy said. “I think for Keyonte and Walker, they each have experience under their belt now, and for them to step into bigger roles for our team ..., it’s going to be about their consistency night to night.”
Kessler said he’d worked on his free-throw shooting, his screening, and physicality under the basket this summer. George, meanwhile, said he’d improved his conditioning, decision-making, and balance.
“The biggest emphasis from Will to me was just being on balance every time,” George said. “You see all these guys shooting fadeaways and all these runners and leaning floaters, but I think it starts with being balanced. Once you start balanced, you’re able to make those type of shots.”
Meanwhile, second-year players Taylor Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh weren’t year-long contributors in their initial campaigns, but look to prove they can be more than that in year two. For both, the biggest changes were to their physical frames. Hardy said that Hendricks, slim as a rookie, had gained 21 pounds since the end of last season; Hendricks said it was about 16 or 17. Regardless, the 20-year-old says the added strength will be important for his defensive role guarding power forwards this season.
“I don’t feel any slower, but I definitely do feel stronger,” Hendricks said.
Sensabaugh, meanwhile, has slimmed down. Coming out of college, Sensabaugh was quite bulky, and it inhibited his defensive movement on the perimeter as well as his ability to run the floor. While a number of pounds lost wasn’t given, Sensabaugh looked noticeably slimmer at media day Monday.
Rookies Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, and Kyle Filipowski have all spent most of their summers in Salt Lake City practicing with Jazz assistant coaches at the Zions Bank Basketball Campus after summer league play ended. Williams’ focus was on learning the Jazz’s play calls and terminology, while Collier and Filipowski both cited their jump shot as the No. 1 development point.
It was Filipowski, the Jazz’s second-round pick, that impressed veteran Jordan Clarkson the most. “Flip, right now, if we were like ‘Let’s throw him in the game, put on a jersey,’ we’re going to war with him for sure,” Clarkson said. “He’s ready.”
How Utah Jazz veterans feel about a rebuild
Speaking of Clarkson, he’s among a group of older players who may figure to see their time diminished as a result of the Jazz’s youth movement. Clarkson said he was fine with a smaller role. “I mean, at this point ... I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. So when I’m checking the game, I might give you 15 and 20 points in those 10 to 15 minutes. I’m just grateful for the opportunity. JC gonna be JC, the flame gonna be flaming.”
John Collins, though, was less sanguine about the potential of moving to the bench if need be for the group of younger players. “I definitely love being a starter,” Collins said. “That’s definitely something that I take pride in and value, going out and being one of those guys who starts the game off with energy, intensity, fire, and setting the tone. I enjoy that and it’s definitely something that I hold dear, for sure.”
Clarkson and Collins, though, didn’t just sign big-money extensions with the Jazz, like star player Lauri Markkanen did. Markkanen is on board with the Jazz’s moves, saying he trusts the team’s front office.
“You accept it, that’s best for the organization, and we obviously got to see what we have. As competitors, I don’t think there’s a player in the NBA that goes in just being okay with ‘let’s see how it goes.’ I think everybody’s competitive, and when you go out there, you’re trying to win,” Markkanen said. “Yeah, there’s probably going to be some mistakes that we have, like every player does, but I remember me being a rookie and just learning — you’re having to make more of them. So you just understand that, but you go out there and compete, like we always do, and live with the results.”
Even if the results aren’t there this season, if the development is, the Jazz will consider the year a success.
