Chicago • The Utah Jazz had a Monday deadline to decide whether to exercise their third-year option on former first-round pick Udoka Azubuike. They didn’t need that long, making the announcement Friday evening that the center would, indeed, return next season.
On Saturday, Jazz general manager Justin Zanik — traveling with the team on its three-game road trip — explained why.
In effect, between believing he didn’t really get a fair chance to show what he can do as a rookie, feeling like his athletic traits remain a good stylistic fit for the Jazz’s schemes, and wanting to continue to develop talent for the future (current backup Hassan Whiteside is only on a one-year contract), Zanik said it was a fairly straightforward decision.
“Last year, we drafted him and four days later, he shows up to camp, and we’re [telling] him, ‘You’re not going to get any reps in the regular season, 1) because of the goals that we have as the veteran team, and 2) nobody in college plays like us,’” Zanik said at the United Center.
When the Jazz selected the 6-foot-10, 280-pound Azubuike with the 27th pick in the 2020 NBA draft, it was a controversial decision.
Yes, the Nigerian-born big man had established an NCAA record by making 74% of his field-goal attempts during his career, and yes, he boasted a 7-7 wingspan and a 37-inch vertical leap — an NBA Combine record for a center. However, despite those impressive measurables, he’d had something of a disappointing run at Kansas, failing to dominate in the paint on a consistent basis, and contributing pretty frankly mediocre rebounding numbers.
Still, the Jazz saw promise, and after dispatching such backup big men as Tony Bradley and Ed Davis, they were hopeful they could develop him into Rudy Gobert’s long-term understudy.
Azubuike, however, had the misfortune of coming into the league while COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions were still largely in place, which canceled the NBA’s 2020 Summer League, and greatly reduced the scheduled G League season.
Furthermore, in his initial G League appearance with the Jazz-affiliated Salt Lake City Stars, Azubuike suffered a severe high ankle sprain in the fourth quarter — an injury that robbed him of months of valuable developmental time and effectively short-circuited his rookie season.
He wound up appearing in 15 games with the Jazz as a rookie, averaging less than 4 minutes, and contributing just 1.1 points, 0.9 rebounds, and 0.3 blocks. He played all of 57 combined minutes in NBA games, after totaling only 28 in the G League.
Still, Jazz brass expressed optimism that, with a traditional summer program under his belt, the potential was there for him to yet turn into something.
His performance in the ensuing Salt Lake City and Las Vegas summer leagues provided both optimism and pessimism.
On the one hand, while out on the court, ‘Dok proved to be an at-times dominant force — averaging 13.7 points, 10.7 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks in SLC, and 13.8, 8.8, and 2.5 in Vegas. All told, he made 42 of 49 field-goal attempts — 85.7%.
On the other hand, though, Jazz assistant and Summer League coach Bryan Bailey had to call frequent timeouts to get the center some extended breathers, as he was clearly struggling with his conditioning. When the Jazz subsequently reported to training camp in Las Vegas at the beginning of October, the 22-year-old did not appear to have made much progress on his body.
“I was very happy with him in the summer and the work that he’s done,” Zanik said. “… It’s just really hard to be in game-type shape when you’re not playing games. I mean, we’d replicate that towards the end of the regular season when he got healthy — we’d play a lot of 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 with the younger guys or the guys that weren’t playing much last season, but that’s completely different.”
Now, the early part of the ‘21-22 NBA campaign has seen Azubuike assigned to and practicing with the Stars, in order to get some extra, individualized attention and development.
Zanik noted that, with only about a dozen games per G League team over the season’s first two months (teams are playing in regional pods ahead of the annual Showcase tournament), Azubuike will get plenty of specialized attention, and the opportunity to be a focal point of the Stars’ schemes, which should hasten his development.
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