The Jazz visit Cleveland Friday, and for Jae Crowder and Kyle Korver, it will be a homecoming

Cleveland • Friday’s Jazz game against the Cavaliers is going to be a bit weird for many of the players involved, there’s just no getting around it.

Because both of last season’s matchups against the Cavs came in the season’s first 37 games, this will be the first time the team will face former teammate Rodney Hood since dealing him at the 2017-18 trade deadline. And, of course, it’s the first time they’ll encounter longtime Jazzman Alec Burks since sending him to the Cavaliers in late November.

Center Rudy Gobert is looking forward to catching up.

“It’s gonna be fun to see them. They’re both great guys, so it’ll be nice to play them. … I love both of them. They’re both great guys,” he said. “I spent almost six years with AB here, a little less with Rodney, but I always had a great relationship with them, especially off the court. Just two guys I really like.”

Of course, there’s also the flip side to consider.

There are going to be emotions involved for the current Jazz players — Jae Crowder and Kyle Korver — who came from Cleveland in those deals, and who will be facing some of their own former teammates, to say nothing of encountering an organization that deemed them expendable.

“I think the challenge is to treat it like another game — we need to go get a win. The Jazz need to go and win; we need to focus on that,” Korver said. “There’s a couple guys who played on Cleveland, even Jae last year, myself; they’ve got guys, obviously, who were here. There’s always a little bit of extra emotion, and that creates a little bit of … not awkwardness, but these guys were teammates with AB for a lot of years, so there’s gonna be a little bit of something there with that. But it’s the NBA, its a good job, and we’re gonna go out there and try to get a win.”

Of course, it’s not always that simple.

Korver spoke of the difficulty inherent in acclimating to a new situation midseason. It can be a difficult thing to do, even if you’re not necessarily upset about it.

“You’re a hundred percent giving yourself to the organization, the city, your teammates, and the coaching staff, and then like that, you’ve got to step to a whole new set of teammates, coaching staff, organization, city. And you have to just do it, you don’t get six months to transition, you get a day or two,” he said. “… It is something. It’s one thing if you had a bunch of bad experiences, but I had great experiences in Cleveland — a couple Finals runs. So anytime you go back, the first game back is always a bit emotional, always a bit trying to keep yourself in check.

“Fortunately for me, when I’ve come back, I’ve never been angry about it, it’s always been good. So I’m grateful for that,” Korver added. “Some people come back and have a chip on their shoulder, like they’ve gotta give it to the other team. It’s not gonna be like that for me. Just a lot of guys I had a good time with.”

Not everyone is quite so magnanimous, though.

When the Jazz faced the Celtics earlier this season, Crowder acknowledged being salty and having a little something extra to prove, considering that when he was in Boston, fans there were openly pleading with Gordon Hayward to join the team as a free agent — thereby taking Crowder’s spot.

Crowder was subsequently traded to Cleveland in a deal that helped the Celtics both acquire Kyrie Irving and clear cap space to sign Hayward.

Of course, Crowder’s time with the Cavs proved tumultuous, and he spent only part of one season in Cleveland before being re-routed to Utah.

“I felt uncomfortable when I first got there. I was playing with guys I had battled previously in the Eastern Conference finals two years in a row. So it was a little uncomfortable. But it made me get out of myself a little bit and buy into the team and buy into my teammates. And obviously playing with such a high-level talent like the guys I played with over there, it was great,” Crowder said. “It made me learn a lot about myself and learn how to play with guys like that. Obviously, I had my issues on and off the court, with my mom passing away, and that was the first team I went to [after that]. … It made me a better person and made me a better professional overall.”

Because Crowder played just 53 games with the Cavs, he concedes he has “a short memory from when I was there.”

That said, he’s not entirely without the desire for some retribution in this situation.

“I just wanna win,” he said. “It’s not too in-depth, like the Boston game. But obviously, I played on that team and I want to win against them.”