The Triple Team: Did Jazz start trying to tank against Dallas — or was it just a one-game anomaly?

Three thoughts on the week of Utah Jazz basketball from Salt Lake Tribune reporter Andy Larsen.

1. A shift in tanking mentality? We’ll see.

The Jazz only played two games this week: a win against the Memphis Grizzlies and a win against the Dallas Mavericks.

But there was a massive shift in rotations between the two games. Against Memphis, the Jazz played veterans Jusuf Nurkic, Svi Mykhailiuk, and Kevin Love, starting the latter two. On Monday against Dallas, they played none of those veterans. That meant putting Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks in the rotation, giving bigger roles to Brice Sensabaugh and Kyle Filipowski.

Why did the Jazz do this? Here’s Will Hardy:

“We need to take care of (the veterans’) bodies. We also need to see some of these young guys play. I felt like it was an opportunity to see Brice play with Lauri,” Hardy said. “Cody and Taylor, I think, have been working really hard, and it’s good to have moments where they are with us and they play real minutes. It’s like a progress report, like, ‘Where am I at? How is this going?’”

First of all, I’m not buying the “we need to take care of the health of the vets” line of reasoning. The Jazz will play two games in this 10-day stretch. They are fine.

I am buying the curiosity about how the youth is doing — the front office is probably especially interested. But I also suspect that the Jazz’s leadership saw this as an important game to lose because of Dallas’ proximity in the standings. Given the Jazz’s position (just outside the draft’s top eight, meaning they’d currently surrender their first-round pick to Oklahoma City), doing this makes some sense.

Historically, when the Jazz have played the young players, they have been a very bad team. This was essentially their strategy at the end of last season when they were able to secure a place at the very bottom of the NBA in order to get the best odds at a top pick. They were awful.

However, this strategy may not be as effective now because the Jazz’s young players have significantly improved. You can get away with 4-youth lineups, you can get away with Cody Williams on the floor, and you can get away with starting Sensabaugh and playing Isaiah Collier 31 minutes, because those players are now better. (It also helps that the Mavs sat Anthony Davis.) And Keyonte George is now not a minus, but a huge plus.

So obvious question: What are the Jazz going to do moving forward? Will they play the youth or the vets?

“A guy like Svi has been in the spot that he’s been in because of his consistency. So if you have him take a night to play somebody else and they do well, it doesn’t mean that he lost his job,” Hardy said.

Hrmm.

Frankly, there’s a right approach to this, in my view: to play the youth. Or at least, to the extent that it most benefits their development. Doing so is beneficial either way. If they win, they gain experience and come closer to contributing to the next contending Jazz team. If they lose, you get a better draft pick.

Playing short-term veterans like Nurkic, Love, and Mykhailiuk only helps you in the long run to the extent you feel the carrot of removing young players’ minutes is effective towards development. I, personally, think the Jazz’s youth are beyond that point. And if one player starts to act out, you can always play another young player or a veteran for a stint.

2. How good is Keyonte George, anyway?

Keyonte George was absolutely brilliant in both games this week.

• Against Memphis, he scored 39 points on 12-of-20 shooting, adding eight assists, six rebounds, and three turnovers, with a 0 +/-.

• Against Dallas, he scored 37 points on 11-of-20 shooting, adding six assists, five rebounds, and two turnovers, with a -5 +/-.

To put up two consecutive 35-plus point nights is really encouraging — that’s the stuff of dependable production that you can count on in an 82-game season. Personally, I’m past the point of questioning whether this leap of George’s is real: I think it clearly is, and reflects a new level of play moving forward.

I think one reasonable question is: How good is this level of play from George? It’s clearly way, way better than before. Is it max contract worthy? Is it build-around worthy?

The sheer jump alone can make this question difficult to answer with the eye test. Stats really help. We all know that you can massage the stats to say what you want them to, but if you approach them with a curious mentality, you can get a good and objective perspective on the matter.

So let’s just look at the all-in-one metrics. George has:

• 1.3 Win Shares, which ranks 118th among NBA players.

• .079 Win Shares per 48, which ranks 126th among NBA players.

• 0.1 Box Plus-Minus, which ranks 94th among NBA players.

• 0.4 VORP, which ranks 90th among NBA players.

• 17.3 PER, which ranks 57th among NBA players.

• -0.7 EPM, which ranks 178th among NBA players.

• 0.73 LEBRON WAR, which ranks 156th among NBA players.

Which is to say: The advanced analytics generally consider George a good starter rather than a star at the moment.

Looking into it further, the weak points of George’s statistical case basically come down to the plus-minus numbers and some poor defensive metrics. The Jazz have been a better plus-minus team with George off the floor this season, and he still doesn’t get a lot of steals, for example, for a starting point guard. The strong points will be obvious to Jazz fans: his level of production in scoring and passing is very high.

He’s also still very young, which portends significant future improvement. I have no real problem with giving George a big contract, given those points. ... But a max contract? Probably not.

Turning those impact stats to becoming strong positives would make his statistical case much, much stronger, however.

3. Responding to fans online

Speaking of whether or not the Jazz should build around certain players ... Jusuf Nurkic drew attention on X this week when he appeared to mock a fan.

The fan shared an opinion that “Keyonte George is not someone you build this thing around… neither is Lauri, neither is Ace…You build around a Darryn Peterson or a Cam Boozer if you’re lucky enough to land them."

Nurkic responded by posting a picture of the man and writing, “we should build around you.”

Nurkic is trying to be a good teammate here, standing up for his guys, Markkanen, George, and Bailey. But I do think it crosses a line of respect to go through a fan’s photos and post one you think will make him look bad. Frankly, the fans are the reason any of us are here, the reason Nurkic and his teammates get millions of dollars per year, and so I think they should have pretty wide leeway in discussing the team online without getting “dunked on.”

Of course, Nurkic has free speech, too. I’m not advocating for any consequences or anything, but in general, I don’t think it’s a good look.

I’d also point this out: The way most NBA coaches and executives talk about players was far, far ruder than the fan’s tweet. Even, frequently, about their own players. The frankness of conversational choices made in off-the-record chats frankly stunned me when I first started covering the NBA with a credential 12 years ago; the negativity did as well.

But this does make sense if you think about it — these coaches and executives got to their spots was, in significant part, due to their ability to make harsh-but-correct choices about which basketball players are better than others.

I’m surprised an NBA veteran like Nurkic still reacts this way to remarks like the fan above’s. If he had reacted to a more disrespectful comment in this way, I’d support him, but this is just normal team-building talk, not more.