The Triple Team: Walker Kessler is averaging over five 3-point attempts per game in the last two games. What’s going on?

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 111-97 loss to the Chicago Bulls from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Walker Kessler shoots threes now?

Before this weekend, Walker Kessler had taken six threes all season long. On Sunday alone, he took another six. On Monday, he took five.

What’s gotten into Kessler?

For one, this is something he has always thought he can do. Talking to Kessler, he took a lot of threes in high school, and even 1.5 per game at Auburn. He really believes that shot making from distance is something that can be part of his NBA game.

But he is so good at the other aspects of basketball that it hasn’t really made sense for the Jazz to allow him to do that. He led the league in both field goal percentage and offensive rebounding percentage. Frankly, him shooting threes takes away from both of those skills.

If there is ever a time to let him try it, though, it’s now — it doesn’t matter if Kessler plays well or helps his team win right now. As a result, Hardy’s letting him take threes, and in volume. He’s told Kessler to try to take six threes per game.

“It’s fun for him, because he works on it all the time,“ Hardy said.

“I’m very, very appreciative of him to give me the opportunity to work on it. And I know, and I believe in myself to know that I can do that,” Kessler said. “I need to get back in the rhythm of how to do it, because it’s been a long time since I’ve really done it in volume.”

Both Kessler and Hardy noted that if he can add the 3-point shot to his NBA repertoire, it would help the Jazz out a lot. Remember, Hardy prefers to play a 5-out system giving guards room to drive to the rim without seeing much help, making the reads cleaner. If Kessler can both screen and shoot from deep, it makes that a lot more feasible.

However: I am skeptical about this working out. Kessler did have 3-point shooting success one year, as a sophomore in high school, when he shot 44% from deep. Impressive! But in his junior year, he shot 33%, his senior year, 27%, and then in college, 20%. In the NBA so far, he’s at 23.5%.

And remember, this is a 54% free-throw shooter this season. You just so rarely see guys who shoot that poorly at a standstill with no defenders shoot well from deep with defenders.

Regardless, it’s a no-risk, high-reward move from Kessler and the coaching staff to let him let it fly with under a month to go in the regular season.

2. Is there a path for Cody Williams?

Narratively, this was an important game for Cody Williams. This year’s No. 11 pick, Matas Buzelis, was coming in playing well for Chicago, and Williams had the chance to show that the Jazz made a reasonable choice in picking Williams first at No. 10.

And instead, Williams really floundered. He finished with five points, three rebounds, and two assists, shooting just 2-8 from the field while adding three turnovers. (Buzelis, meanwhile, put up 17 points, nine rebounds, and two assists.)

Williams stats are abysmal this season, and the eye test isn’t much better. He’s shooting just 34% from the field this year, 29% from three, and averaging just five points, two rebounds, and one assist in his 20 minutes per game. He alternates between disappearing in games and looking overmatched. He currently has the worst Estimated Plus-Minus of any player in the league this season who has played more than 25 games.

His stats all come back below replacement level — i.e., if you replaced Williams with the best available G-Leaguer, the Jazz overall would be better off.

However. He is a rookie. The Jazz continue to like his basketball brain. Honestly, talking to him, so do I. I think he has a sense of what should be done, but isn’t capable of doing so right now.

Here’s the question: are there any players who have had this poor of a rookie season come back and have a good career?

The answer is yes! Here are some guys who have done so since 2000:

Obviously, the odds aren’t great, as this constitutes less than 20% of the players who have put up negative win shares in significant minutes in their rookie season. And I’d also point out that most of the successful examples here are high-volume shooting guards, unlike Williams.

But Avery Bradley, DeShawn Stevenson, and Corey Brewer stand out as potential paths for Williams to turn himself into a useful role player from here on out. Those guys molded their games and extended their careers with an understanding of what specific things they could do to contribute, a process Williams will need to go through in the next couple of years as well in order to stick.

3. Watching Darryn Peterson up close

In yesterday’s Triple Team, we looked at AJ Dybantsa’s performance in the Grind Session games at Highland High School this weekend. Today, we’ll look at Darryn Peterson, the other contender for the No. 1 spot among the current high school class.

Peterson immediately stood out, even during warmups — not by virtue of his athleticism, or his size, but the definition of his body. Right away, Peterson looks like he’s 25 and already in the NBA thanks to his muscle definition and his 6-5 frame.

He also sort of played this game like if you dropped a 25-year-old NBA guard in a high school game. He took a couple of shots early, missed them both, and kind of decided he didn’t have the shot on Sunday. So instead, he was the best player in the game by simply making the right play offensively, setting up his very good teammates (his Prolific Prep is the No. 1 team in the tournament), and picking his spots to score. 19 points, seven assists were the result. He did not expend much effort on the defensive end, which was disappointing.

When he did decide to make the scoring play, he was phenomenal, though. He has the calm shiftiness of the very best players in the paint — think Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, for example. The floater is good. Statistically, the jumper is excellent. And we’ve seen him play much harder and much better than he did on this day.

It was also fun to see him joke around with teammates. He tried to shorts one of them at one point on the bench, for example.

There are many who have put Peterson over Dybantsa due to the former’s performances this season. But, like ESPN’s analysts who have kept Dybantsa on top, this experience made me lean towards the kid going to BYU. Peterson’s game is so, so smooth — I do think Gilgeous-Alexander is a reasonable high-end comp. But I think there’s a world in which the skill level settles out a little among the world’s best, and then he won’t have the top-tier athleticism to fall back on. I think there’s a world in which he becomes, say, peak Victor Oladipo. Great player, but... not an All-NBA star.

Dybantsa is terrifying in his athleticism, while also showing some really pretty impressive basketball IQ. I think I’m more sure he’ll be a star than Peterson. There might be a little bit of Andrew Wiggins downside, I guess, but honestly, I think Dybantsa already has so much more want-to on both ends of the floor than Wiggins ever did.

They’re two really phenomenal prospects, though. There’s a decent chance the Jazz end up drafting one of them in the 2026 draft — which would change the franchise for years to come.

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