As the Utah Jazz prepare for the Boston Celtics, Udoka Azubuike and the SLC Stars ready for G League weirdness

It’s a hard enough job being the coach of an NBA G League team in normal circumstances, what with the constant chaos of roster turnover that constantly features players being called up, sent down, or perhaps sent away altogether.

But being a first-time G League head coach trying to develop players while the coronavirus pandemic remains ongoing and the “season” has been truncated to less than a month total and will take place inside yet another “bubble” environment at the Disney World complex in Florida?

Yeah … not exactly how new Salt Lake City Stars coach Nathan Peavy envisioned his big opportunity occurring — but he’s vowing to make the best of it, as the Stars will finalize their roster Tuesday and begin playing games Wednesday.

“It’s been a very big challenge. Coming in being the head coach of the Stars in an unprecedented year, in an unprecedented season like this — it’s full of challenges, but it’s very exciting, because I feel like this challenge really pushes me,” Peavy said in a Monday afternoon Zoom call with local media. “It pushes me out of my comfort zone to be better, to improve, to constantly make the changes and adjustments necessary for us to achieve what we need to achieve as a team, and also for these players individually for their games, to help them keep getting better and keep them developing.”

That is the primary goal, after all.

While the G League does not get a ton of day-to-day media attention, its coaches and staff have been entrusted with taking on talented-but-flawed players and attempting to refine them to the point that they can become functional, competent roster pieces at the least. Two of the Stars’ biggest success stories have been in turning Georges Niang into a Utah Jazz rotation mainstay, and in helping Juwan Morgan go from undrafted prospect to a viable option now in his second season in the NBA.

Peavy’s big challenge over the coming weeks? Working with rookie center Udoka Azubuike — a physical specimen and athletic marvel who became a first-round draft pick, but whose lack of system recognition and acclimation to NBA game speed relegated him not only behind Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors, but also behind Morgan — thus earning him a developmental assignment to the Stars.

Azubuike, speaking from the NBA campus near Lake Buena Vista, Fla., appeared nonplussed with his situation, giving clipped responses to questions about what’s ahead and what he’s trying to accomplish there. And to be fair, he certainly would rather be on the bench of the team with the best record in the NBA when the 19-5 Utah Jazz host the Boston Celtics at Vivint Arena on Tuesday night for a game set to be nationally broadcast on TNT.

Even if his dozen Jazz appearances thus far have yielded just 1,0 points and 1.1 rebounds in 4.1 mop-up minutes per game.

That said, he also recognized why the Jazz made the decision with him that they did.

“They pretty much just want me to come out here, just get more [up to] game speed,” Azubuike said. “They want me to come over here and get into game mode, play more, just learn a lot about the system and the plays, and how they run their offense. … I’m just over here learning plays — we have a lot of plays.”

Peavy, who is in constant contact with the Jazz coaching staff, going over plans and areas of emphasis, noted that while Azubuike is blessed with physical gifts, the Jazz’s roster situation simply means that he’s better-suited spending some time with the Stars for now and getting a chance to get into games and play meaningful minutes.

And if he treats this time as an opportunity as opposed to a punishment, he should quickly reap the rewards.

“I think for Udoka, he has to play. He has to get reps, he has to be able to adjust to the pro game,” Peavy said. “It was very hard for him with Jazz because he has very, very good players in front of him — a superstar in Rudy Gobert, a veteran in Derrick Favors, and also Juwan Morgan, who has a year under his belt thus far.

“So Udoka has to learn, he has to be able to adjust to the pro game now. And I think with those reps, he has a very bright future ahead of him,” Peavy added. “He just has to get a feel for the game, he has to develop that over time. That comes over time. And I feel like it can come quickly — quicker than most for Udoka in these circumstances — just because of his physical tools and his talent level.”

Which isn’t to say there won’t be some weirdness to navigate in the meantime.

Stars guard Jake Toolson, who extolled the virtues of being free following a four-day in-room quarantine, gave a rote, hour-by-hour breakdown of the daily routine there: breakfast, COVID-19 testing, table treatment, lunch, film session, practice, pool treatment, cold tub, training room treatment, dinner, and some nighttime hours to spend as you see fit.

He acknowledged being grateful that the Stars have a pair of NBA veterans in Yogi Ferrell and Malcolm Miller who went through the NBA bubble this past summer (with the Kings and Raptors, respectively) and could walk their new teammates through the situation.

“Me and Malcolm were talking about that big meeting where it almost blew up,” Toolson said, referencing the players-only meeting wherein the possibility of canceling the restart was invoked as a possibility to protest racial injustice. “Yogi, I’m just asking him, ‘Was this the same or is this different? What’s this like compared to the last time?’ So they’ve got a good perspective on things and they’ve kind of been able to guide us through this process.”

Peavy wishes he had that. Alas, Quin Snyder & Co. are kinda busy at the moment.

Still, he has gotten some great advice from the Jazz’s health-performance team about how best to get his players going, given that many did not have consistent access to gyms let alone high-level games, and that they had to quarantine in their own hometowns before coming to Salt Lake City to quarantine, before then going to Disney World for yet another quarantine.

“One thing that I learned is, start slowly. We had to really start slowly, we had to let these guys kind of adapt to their environment, adapt to getting on the court because a lot of these guys haven’t played a basketball game in 10 months,” Peavy said. “So it’s just like, you just have to ramp them up a little slowly, that way we can work them in up to 100%.”

Come to think of it, that sounds like a microcosm of the bigger job ahead.