The Triple Team: Jazz promote Isaiah Collier to starting PG, pushing Keyonte George to the bench

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 125-103 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. A new starting point guard for Utah

For the first time in a year, Keyonte George came off the bench for Saturday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies. It’s been a rocky year in the starting lineup for George, who unfortunately hasn’t really taken any strides in year two when compared to year one.

But George’s move to the bench was just as much about the play of rookie Isaiah Collier. Collier’s extremely turnover prone, and shoots with some really ugly percentages — but he ranks 16th in the NBA in assists per 36 minutes, and gets the Jazz up the floor and into plays much quicker than George. His defense is also much better. I wouldn’t call it good, yet, but better.

Both players struggled on Saturday, though. Collier shot 4-11 for eight points, with eight assists and four turnovers. George had a nearly matching eight points and seven assists, though his effort came on an ugly 3-15 shooting from the field.

I’ll be honest, I experienced some déjà vu at this decision. Ten years ago, Quin Snyder made nearly exactly the same choice on nearly exactly the same day: on January 22, 2015, he began starting rookie point guard Dante Exum over Trey Burke. Burke was the better shooter, but simply shot too much, enough that his misses piled up. He was a lackluster defender. Exum, the rookie, was the better passer and defender, but couldn’t shoot.

There are differences (Collier’s pretty aggressive downhill, whereas Exum wasn’t to start his career, for example), but the similarities are definitely there. As we later learned, neither Burke nor Exum would be the point guard of the future for the Jazz.

We don’t know what’s coming for these two new players a decade later — but I do think there is a lesson here. Generally, when two young players are fighting for playing time, coaches are going to prefer the one who fits most neatly into the structure of the rest of the group. In this case, I think it’s clear that’s Collier.

2. Eubanks' ejection

Drew Eubanks was ejected for this in the second quarter of tonight’s game:

This video does a good job of showing the play that led up to the play: Zach Edey leaves out an elbow on Eubanks as the pair fight for a rebound. Edey was probably trying to send a message after Eubanks shoved Ja Morant in a scuffle a few minutes earlier.

But then Eubanks sizes him up much more obviously on the next play. Tyler Ford explains the ejection:

“Eubanks speeds up with the speed of his body for the purpose of delivering significant impact in a non-basketball manner,” Ford says. He definitely does that — the way he targets Edey, it’s clear he’s not focused on the ball but on the contact.

“But Andy, haven’t you recently argued for the NBA game to become more physical?,” I hear you asking from behind your screen. Yes, but I think the dividing line is risk of injury. If Eubanks hadn’t gone for Edey, but say, Morant, I think it’s fair to say there was significant risk of injury. If Edey hadn’t seen Eubanks coming, and hadn’t been able to stiffen up to defend himself, and hadn’t been the biggest player in the NBA, it also could have been dangerous. (Markieff Morris missed four months after this hit from Nikola Jokic, for example.)

I do wish that there were more obvious criteria for the difference between flagrant ones and twos, though. I feel it was a flagrant two due to the non-basketball nature of the play, but fans online, along with Craig Bolerjack and Thurl Bailey, disagreed with me strongly — and it’s hard to argue with them given the rules as is. A flagrant one is “unnecessary contact” while a flagrant two is “unnecessary and excessive contact,” and that’s a slippery dividing line.

I also wish the crew had gone back to the initial elbow and given Edey a tech for that as well. I know that’s a slippery dividing line, too, but clearly played a role in what happened here.

3. A very weird Rookie of the year race

We knew this was one of the worst draft classes ever last year, certainly at the top. Some draft prognosticators felt that the 10-30 range was pretty normal, but the truth is that there haven’t been a lot of successes in that window, either.

Here are the current Rookie of the Year odds, across a variety of sportsbooks:

No rookie has over 12 points per game. Closest is Memphis’ Jaylen Wells, the 39th pick overall — he’s outshined Zach Edey in the Grizzlies' starting lineup, unexpectedly. He doesn’t do a whole lot besides take shots the rest of the offense sets up for him... but that’s all it takes in this class.

Ware is the No. 15 overall pick who was a non-factor the first 25 games of the year, before the Heat threw him into action recently, and have found impressive success. He’s scored over 20 points in his last three games, enough for Eric Spoelstra to put him into the starting lineup. That push alone has put him at the top of the race.

You’ll also even note Collier near the bottom of that list. I don’t think I’d make that bet, but could see him make a jump into the ROY top three if he begins to score more along with the assists now that he’s in the starting lineup.

Next year’s class looks better, which is a good sign for the Jazz, given they’re putting their eggs in the draft basket. Right now, this 2024 class looks like a reasonable group of role players, but there’s really no one with future star power.

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