Jordan Clarkson ends Utah Jazz’s 16-year triple-double drought

The game had been decided. History had not been.

With the clock counting down in an increasingly lopsided game, the Utah Jazz’s margin going from 10 to 20 to 30 and more, Delta Center fans moved closer to the edge of their seats. Jordan Clarkson, the longest-tenured Jazzman, had a chance to do something the franchise hadn’t done in 16 years of regular season games: grab a triple-double.

The minutes counted down.

The assists? Easy. The 10th came with eight minutes left in the game. The ninth rebound? Simple. It was hauled in two minutes later.

That 10th rebound, though? It was like pulling teeth.

“I didn’t even think it was going to happen,” Clarkson said. “A lot of air balls. Walker [Kessler] was blocking shots. We got a lot of steals.”

But Clarkson made a deal with his coach, Will Hardy: keep him in, and as soon as he grabbed that rebound, he’d call timeout. And the shooting guard told his newer teammates what a triple-double meant, that it would be the first since Carlos Boozer did it against the Seattle Supersonics on Feb. 13, 2008.

With 2:31 left, it happened. Luka Samanic boxed out space for the rebound, and Clarkson swooped in and leaped for the ball. Exhausted and elated, he went back to the bench and celebrated with his teammates. In the end, Clarkson’s 20 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds Monday night snapped the streak — and pushed the Jazz to a 127-90 win.

“It meant a lot, honestly,” Clarkson said. “I played with Carlos Boozer, and that was his record. It just felt good, it was a very cool milestone.”

Clarkson got a text from Boozer after the game congratulating him on the accomplishment. After an odd series of years, some sense of normalcy returned to the Delta Center.

An unusual drought

Why the focus on just one performance? Well, it’s simple: there have been 1,204 regular-season triple-doubles in the NBA since the Utah Jazz last got one.

Yes, the Jazz did have a playoff triple-double during the extended regular-season drought. Point guard Ricky Rubio had 26 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in a 2018 playoff victory over Oklahoma City. But despite All-Star seasons from Deron Williams, Gordon Hayward, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, and Lauri Markkanen, none of them were ever able to put together one game in which they picked up the requisite points, boards, and assists.

Elsewhere in the league, triple-doubles exploded. In the 2008-09 season, there were 30 in the NBA. Last season? 119. In fact, every other NBA franchise has had at least 10 triple-doubles since Boozer’s. Oklahoma City has a whopping 159.

The Jazz had zero over the course of those nearly 16 years.

It didn’t always take a star player, or even one of Clarkson’s caliber, to record a triple-double. Ben Uzoh, Aleksej Pokusevski, Theo Pinson, Tony Wroten, and other players with only minor NBA minutes picked up the accomplishment while the Jazz waited.

After the game, Hardy appreciated that history was made.

“One of the fun parts about joining a franchise like this is that there’s so many storylines and things that maybe I didn’t know about from a distance,” Hardy said. “But when you immerse yourself in it ... I was just as happy as anybody that we got to celebrate the streak being over.”

A successful game all around

The triple-double came in perhaps the Jazz’s best performance of the season. After losing by 50 to the Mavericks in Dallas just a month ago, the team was perhaps at its lowest point, playing ugly isolation basketball that wasn’t doing the team any favors. On Monday, they got the chance to take revenge, and took full advantage.

Before Clarkson, it was Italian swingman Simone Fontecchio who started the Jazz’s charge with 14 first-quarter points; he ended up with a game-high 24. Changing zone defenses, including box-and-one looks against Dallas stars Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, frustrated both stars all night long.

The Jazz led throughout the final three quarters, but the game’s outcome was still in doubt entering the fourth; the Jazz had a 14-point lead. But in that final period, the Jazz’s bench unit simply blew away the Mavs, who looked disengaged late. In the end, The Jazz won the final period by a 34-11 margin, turning the actual outcome of the game itself into a formality so that Clarkson could break the long-lasting streak.

It was appropriate, Hardy said — Clarkson’s pass-first style of play Monday echoed one that has happened throughout the team as they’ve won six of their last seven contests.

“Based on narratives around Jordan at different times, about just sort of being a gunner, I don’t think anybody would have expected him to be the person that would get the triple-double,” Hardy said. “I mean, it shows that he’s adapted to our group. He’s adapted to a new role and that he’s really trying to expand how he contributes to winning.”

“If I could have picked somebody on our team right now to break the streak, it would have been Jordan,” Hardy said.

It was. While the accomplishment might have been a side note elsewhere in the NBA, it was history unique to Utah. And that history was made, a streak broken, by the one player remaining with ties to the past and the present of Jazz basketball.