Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 118-110 loss to the Golden State Warriors from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.
1. Is Johnny Juzang an NBA player?
The latest chapter in the ongoing saga came Sunday night, when Juzang led the Jazz with 27 points, including seven makes out of eight shots from 3-point range. Just on the back of that performance alone, he raised his 3-point shooting percentage from 32.7 to 39.7%. Hurray, small sample sizes! Heck, if you round, Juzang’s now a 40% 3-point shooter.
The sharp movement in one night highlights just how tumultuous the life of an NBA 3-point shooter can be — one night, you’re asking your agent to check out EuroLeague opportunities, the next, you’re hoping for multiple offers this summer.
Truth be told, this is essentially the same path Georges Niang took: going from a two-way contract with the Jazz, parlaying that into minor Jazz opportunities, and impressing with his jump shot enough to stick in the league. Niang just signed a $26 million contract with the Cavs, too, so it’s a massive success story.
The biggest difference is just in how much better Niang was in G-League action. The Minivan was a legitimate G-League superstar, singlehandedly making the difference between the Stars being “pretty good” and “one of the worst G-League teams ever.” With Juzang, the G-League statistics have been... merely good. Visually, too, he’s not a huge standout at that level.
Still, he’s relatively young. Having just turned 23, he’s significantly younger than Ochai Agbaji and is about the same age as Walker Kessler. So there could be growth there into being a really consistent player, and it’s probably worth giving a bit more time to see how the development path continues.
2. Quicker decisions from Keyonte George
Keyonte George had a very good scoring night tonight, with 25 points on 8-16 shooting. That included 14 points in the fourth quarter, though it wasn’t as close as the final score would indicate. He also only had one assist.
Due to the generally rough basketball, I find myself thinking a lot about George and his future. I’ve written about his turnovers, his shot, his vision, his defense... and now I’m looking to his general pace of play. In particular, I just think he has a lot of room to speed up his decision making so that the offense flows more smoothly with him in the game.
Here are the top 10 players in terms of “average seconds per touch,” according to the NBA’s tracking data.
So you have the most notorious ball-in-hand stars in the league — Trae, SGA, Luka, Harden... and then you have George.
On one hand, at least it’s good company! But George right now simply is neither the scorer nor the playmaker that everyone else is on that list. Those players have all earned their ability to monopolize the offense through terrific play, whereas George is getting it a little by default, and a little through his own tendency to over-dribble.
Personally, I’d like to see him down a little lower on the list, closer to a Mike Conley (4.43 seconds per touch) in order to facilitate good offense for everyone else. That is, unless he wants to become as good at offense as those other guys — that’s probably the better outcome for the Jazz.
3. Jazz players as draft prospects
At the end of the NCAA tournament, there’s naturally a lot of talk about NBA Draft prospects, and it’s interesting to look at the Jazz players in that light. What was the scuttlebutt on them as potential draftees, and what have we learned since?
We don’t have room for the whole roster, so let’s just pick some highlights from the roster who were selected in the lottery. I’m going to use NBADraft.net for these draft scouting reports — not necessarily because they’re the best draft website, but because their archive is most complete.
• Lauri Markkanen was compared to Ryan Anderson and Nikola Mirotic, which honestly feels about right stylistically. The questions were about whether he could defend well enough to stick (turns out that he developed into a very reasonable defender), rebound well enough to stick (same). Additionally, scouts were concerned if he’d pass well (eh, it’s still a fair concern), and whether he was vocal enough on the court (probably not to be a leader). But honestly, it’s a very accurate scouting report, one where Markkanen worked hard enough to surpass while staying in that mold.
• Kris Dunn was compared to both Devin Harris and Jordan Clarkson — which doesn’t really fit his game at all at this point, though it’s worth noting Dunn was slowed by injury. Even at his best physically, though, Dunn never made much of an impact at the NBA level with quickness. He simply turned the ball over too much, which was a concern in his scouting report. In retrospect, too much credit was given to his senior year 3-point percentage (37%) and not his overall shooting prowess and limitations.
• Kira Lewis Jr. was compared to Dennis Schroder and Darren Collison. He was essentially drafted due to just how quick he was, which, like Dunn, might have been sapped by his own ACL tear. Still, as NBADraft.net noted, “as far as his upside goes, he’s a couple levels below the NBA’s most dynamic point guard athletes” — and his speed just doesn’t stand out on an NBA court. In the end, his size has been limiting at the NBA level; he just gets driven through on defense and doesn’t shoot, finish, or draw fouls enough on offense to be a rotation-level point guard.
Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.
Follow @andyblarsen