Salt City Seven: Gauging Success, Biggest Quote, Game Ball Catchup & More

George and Filipowski played a big role down the stretch for Utah. (Rob Gray via sltrib.com)

Special note: Most weeks during the regular season begin here at SCH with the Salt City Seven, a septet of recurring features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Sometimes, though, life happens, which is why the SC7 has been conspicuously absent the last couple of weeks.

So this final SC7 of the 2024-25 season will recap the season, but also catch up in some areas.

A quick exploration of a big-picture topic

When the 2024-25 season wrapped up on Sunday afternoon, the Utah Jazz had secured what seemed to be their primary objective: maximum odds of drafting a franchise-changing talent. But there are other measures of success for this season that will probably take a longer while to measure.

General manager Justin Zanik called this a “productive, informative” season on Monday, despite the worst win-loss record in club history. When it comes to some of those benefits around player development and information gathering, it may be a while before we really understand the degree to which the 2024-25 Jazz season was, in oversimplified language, successful.

The Jazz have told us what their overarching goal is: to build a roster that can ultimately open a long contention window. So everything that happens in the short term is either successful or not based on how much it contributes to that goal. And quite simply, it will probably be a while before we really know how much of what the Jazz did this season got them closer to their loftiest aspirations.

If they come away from the May 12 lottery with a chance to draft a Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper-level talent, that will be a huge step in the right direction. But it’s not really fair to judge success on what happens inside a plastic barrel containing ping pong balls. The Jazz did everything they could to maximize their odds and will come away with no worse than a top-5 pick, but the lottery process is, by league design, more random than it used to be.

So there are a few different ways to measure how much this season contributed to the Jazz’s long-term championship equity, and most of these will take a long time to measure.

Developing playoff-caliber rotational talent.  To the degree that we’re still talking about the 2024-25 season when the Jazz are back in the playoffs, it will be because of the way players used their extra opportunities this year to create a path toward being rotational pieces on a good team. But it’s pretty hard to know that today. As of right now, it seems like a fair bet that Walker Kessler could contribute to a playoff rotation now, and that Cody Williams probably isn’t ready, with varying degrees of “maybe” on everybody in between the two. What matters more is how soon any of these young guys could play a role on a contender, because that will help determine how soon Utah is ready to start the climb.

But for now, we’ve only really seen, say, Keyonte George and Kyle Filipowski ply their trade in the context of a team that wasn’t exactly at full throttle. Several players used the season to demonstrate an NBA-level skill — like Brice Sensabaugh’s shooting, or Isaiah Collier’s vision and strength. Two or three years down the road, they will have either built on those strengths to become winning basketball players… or their nice performances from 2024-25 will have become footnotes in a story that’s not really about them. If any of these guys is making plays on NBC in May 2028, then this season will have been successful in that it proved foundational to building a winning NBA player.

Restoring vets’ values. The same goes for any young guy on Utah’s roster, but the veterans too. On the surface, John Collins’ resurgent second Jazz season would appear to have juiced his value, but it’s hard to know for sure until something happens (or doesn’t) on the trade market, or until he is part of a more competitive Jazz future. Lauri Markkanen spent the season experimenting with new, bold ways to generate outside looks, but it will be hard to know how that contributed to the big goal until we see it applied in a context with more actual stakes. Jordan Clarkson’s outside shooting rebounded nicely after a down year, and Collin Sexton has stayed healthy while performing at essentially the same level (18 ppg on 48-40-86 splits) for two seasons. We’ll have to see what any of those performances means, either to the Jazz or to the marketplace.

Information gathering. It’s a tremendous bummer that we’re no closer to understanding Taylor Hendricks’ path to being a difference maker, but that’s the nature of injuries. For everybody else, the Jazz are several hundred data points closer to having a reliable forecast of each guy’s trajectory. And, because they’ve seen them on the practice court and in the locker room, they have more information than anybody else on each guy’s mindset, attitude and coachability. In some cases, that knowledge will inform decisions that have to be made in a few weeks’ time (like contract guarantees). In other cases, it’s more open-ended. The Jazz reached a determination fairly early that Ochai Agbaji and Simone Fontecchio weren’t likely to be franchise changers, so they parlayed their value into more swings — which became Collier and Filipowski. If the Jazz make similar decisions in the months ahead, it could be the result of data collected over the last six months.

Other more abstract measures. “Culture” has become pretty cliché in the NBA world, but since Will Hardy just finished telling us that it’s his top priority at this stage of the rebuild, part of the analysis of the 2024-25 season should consider how the last 3,961 minutes of Jazz basketball contributed to the environment that will ultimately beget winning.

And again, there’s not an easy answer to that in April 2025. On the one hand, the locker room stayed mostly harmonious amid a losing season, and players generally seem to want to stay in the program. On the other hand, Utah’s last-ranked defense never really budged despite multiple pleas from Hardy. And the Jazz certainly had to compromise the “no free minutes” ideology based on a lack of available bodies at different points. Now, will that erode the culture by itself? Probably not, especially if the Jazz add more top-end talent this summer. But it will be interesting to gauge over time how accountability structures held up in a 65-loss season.

All of this is to say that in a season like this one, it doesn’t make sense to rush to a verdict of “successful” or “unsuccessful.” What the Jazz hope this season yields is a set of outcomes that will likely be measured over months and years.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“I feel like what I did last summer with signing here, that kind of tells you the confidence I have in the organization and the guys we have. I love being in Utah.”

-Markkanen in his exit interview

It does not appear that a trade demand is incoming from the lone All-Star on Utah’s roster.

What Markkanen is referring to when he says “what I did last summer” is that he intentionally delayed his extension signing to make himself ineligible to be traded during the season. Now, after a 17-65 season, he’s reiterating the intentionality behind that decision and signaling a desire to stay in Utah long-term.

The Jazz could, of course, still decide to move him this offseason. But the fact that he’s referring back to that decision in referencing his desire to be here makes it clear that he understood the interstitial nature of the 2024-25 season and that, for now at least, the Jazz’s rebuild has not worn down Markkanen’s patience.

Markkanen saw some statistical dips this season as he played less and as the Jazz experimented more liberally with his role in the offense. He averaged 19.0 points per game after a 2-year peak at 24.5, and his overall efficiency (.571 TS%) dropped back to around league average. He also remains the active player with the most career games played (450) and no playoff appearances. No player since the NBA-ABA merger has scored more points than Markkanen’s 8,200 without making the playoffs.

So it would be understandable if he were getting antsy, but for now, it appears he remains a believer in Utah’s plan and trajectory.

Stats that tell the story of the week

Here are some broader stats to recap the 2024-25 season.

-9.2

The Jazz finished the season with the third lowest net rating in the league, largely because they had the NBA’s worst defense for the second straight season.

30th

Utah also ranked last in turnovers (both forced and committed) and opponent 3-pointers allowed, and frequency of opponent transition plays.

+12.3, +5.9, +3.3

The three players who most contributed to winning this year were, unsurprisingly, the three late-20s vets. But the order might be somewhat unexpected. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Jazz’s efficiency differential was 12.3 points better with Collins on the floor vs. off, 5.9 better with Markkanen, and 3.3 with Sexton. Collins’ second Jazz season was a major success, and his year-to-year improvement is going to be very relevant, whether to his Jazz future or to his broader value. Markkanen’s differential (which was down from last year’s +11.0) was a result of brazen experimentation with his role and shot diet, and Sexton’s was likely deflated by having spent a huge chunk of the season in a chaperone role, surrounded by only kiddos. (On the flip side, the worst efficiency differentials belonged to Williams, George and Johnny Juzang, among the big minute guys.)

4.6

In both Box Plus-Minus and VORP, however, Utah’s most productive player was Kessler, who also had a bounceback season. His Value Over Replacement Player metric would equate out to 4.6 wins added, most on the team. Both of those metrics show Filipowski and Sensabaugh as the next most valuable players.

46

The Jazz used 46 different starting lineup combinations involving 18 different players.

11

Because of trades, signings and two-way shuffling, the Jazz had three players who were on their roster to start the season but not by the end (Drew Eubanks, Patty Mills, Jason Preston), three players who ended the season on the roster after joining later (KJ Martin, Elijah Harkless, Jaden Springer), and five others who were officially in the club’s employ at some point but never played in a Jazz game (David Jones, Mo Bamba, PJ Tucker, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Josh Richardson).

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win

We have a lot of catching up to do here after missing some weeks due to family stuff… so we’ll try to make quicker work of this one.

Jazz 128, Wizards 112: Brice Sensabaugh. The bench scorer poured in 15 of his 17 points during the 22-4 run Utah used to pull away for good, which is why he had a game-best +16 and why I think in retrospect he has to be the choice here. But Utah also got good all-around nights from Flip (21-4-2), George (20-4-4) and Sexton (18-3-5), and Collier had four steals to go with 16 & 6. Honestly, my #2 choice here would have been Flip, partly because tracking says the Wiz shot 6-for-16 with him defending. He and Sexton scored at essentially a point-per-minute rate, and George was solid.

Jazz 133, Blazers 126: Kyle Filipowski. Flip was awesome, both in terms of total impact (30 and 18, the first such game by a Jazz rookie ever) and also his role down the stretch. In the late fourth, he assisted a game-tying three and then threw down two dunks in the final :15 to force OT. In the extra period, he assisted another Sensabaugh three, drove for consecutive buckets, and later dunked the clinching basket. Sensabaugh was also on fire late, with 14 of his 22 coming in the fourth and OT, and George hit back-to-back threes in the final 90 seconds of the extra session.

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 97, Bulls 111: Keyonte George. It’s hard to know what to do with Markkanen in these games where for a stretch he looks like the best thing the Jazz have going, but then he only plays 2 1/2 quarters. In this one, he managed just a point per shot anyway, so we’ll give it to George, who got it going during an 11-point second half to finish with 16 (on 7 shots and 7/7 from the line). Sensabaugh had 13 and a +6, but plays the second fewest minutes. 
• Jazz 99, Celtics 121: Collin Sexton. All other starters scored a point per shot or less, which made Sexton’s 30 (on 16 shots) stand out all that much more. George was the best bench producer with 19, although Micah Potter was both efficient and held Celtics shooters to 6-for-15 as primary defender.
• Jazz 91, Cavs 120: Kyle Filipowski. Another one that gets doled out almost by default, and Flip’s 18 & 13 were the only really positive line. Juzang had 12 and the team’s best plus-minus, but only played 19 minutes, so let’s not overcomplicate this one.
• Jazz 103, Grizzlies 140: Isaiah Collier: His 21-4-3 line was the best in this blowout by a pretty wide margin, although Sexton was at least efficient (15 points in 10 minutes before an early departure).
• Jazz 110, Rockets 121: Keyonte George. The Jazz actually won George’s minutes by nine, which is a pretty impressive thing to say about a game in which the Jazz only led for 54 total seconds. Sensabaugh was also really good offensively, with 6-for-6 shooting on the way to 17 points, but George’s 17-8-3 was the standout performance.
• Jazz 93, Nuggets 129: Kyle Filipowski. Flip actually held the reigning MVP to 2-for-7 shooting when primarily matched up on him, in addition to his own production of 18 & 13. That combination was likely more valuable than Sexton’s 20-point night given the latter’s middling efficiency, and same goes for George’s 18 points on 17 shots.
• Jazz 106, Hornets 110: Brice Sensabaugh. Flip hustled his way into 14 & 13 despite a rough shooting night, and George fired his way to 20 points. But the best on this night was Sensabaugh, whose 19 came more efficiently (6-for-11 including five threes) and who added five assists and three steals.
• Jazz 105, Rockets 143: Isaiah Collier. This was a massacre, but the starting backcourt of Collier-Sexton combined for 40 points and 14 assists on 60% shooting. Collier (22 & 10) did the most heavy lifting, so we’ll give this one to him. George led bench scorers with 14, and Martin had 13 in what would ultimately become his season finale.
• Jazz 112, Pacers 140: Collin Sexton. Easy button on this one, as Sexton’s 27 resulted from a 53-40-90 shooting night. Take out his 8-for-15 and the rest of the team shot 34.8%. Of the six high-minute guys, only George joined Sexton with more than a point per shot: he had 15 after making 6-of-14.
• Jazz 134, Hawks 147: Keyonte George. Neither team could stop anybody, which is why the most fitting thing is to recognize George’s season-best 35 points, including a double-digit first quarter while the game was still close. Collier would be this writer’s #2 after George, based on a 17-and-12 double-double, but Sexton (27-5-6) was really good again.
• Jazz 111, Thunder 145: Svi Mykhailiuk. That his shorts were on backwards for this entire 27-point performance only enhances the lore of yet another late-season Jazz win led by a third-unit veteran. Mykhailiuk was most unconscious during the fourth, when he hit three triples and an over-the-shoulder fling shot. Sensabaugh deserves mention after notching 25-5-6, and both Flip (15 & 13) and Tshiebwe (10 & 14) lodged double-doubles. Eight assists for George. (And the actual Game Ball went to longtime in-arena announcer Dan Roberts.)
• Jazz 105, Wolves 116: Oscar Tshiebwe. Brice led the Jazz with 22-7-3 (and two steals), but I feel like we have to use this weird game to get Tshiebwe on the board. The lovable big had 18 points (7-for-8 shooting) to go with 12 rebounds, two assists, three steals and a team-best +8 in a game they lost by 11. And he played enough minutes (24+) that this doesn’t get ruled out by my low-minute-sparkplug disqualifier. But it’s really close between those two.

So what does the final tally look like?

17 wins, 65 losses

Dissecting a Jazz scoring play from the week

One of the interesting things about the latter part of the season is just how often the Jazz have been running offense through Filipowski, especially since Collier got shelved with injury. Since the All-Star break, Flip has spent more total time in possession of the ball than any other non-guard on the roster. But it’s not just sheer time with the ball, it’s how often he’s been the hub of action from the wings or the elbows.

This is a cool play because it’s not that often you see a 6’11” guy put the ball on the deck from 24 feet away and waltz right to the rim. But to be honest, there’s nothing really special about the Xs and Os. There are a ton of plays each game just like this where Flip is given the ball and just asked to read what’s happening as guys run around off-ball screens. Here, judging from George’s body language, I think this was legitimately meant to be a DHO (dribble hand-off), but he sees Naz Reid sort of lurching forward and keeps it because he knows Reid won’t be able to change his momentum to stay with him.

A ton of plays start like this and end differently. Earlier in the same third quarter, there was a play where the defense top-locked Juzang away from a hand-off, so Flip instinctually turns around and looks for another avenue before eventually feeding Key for a layup. Earlier still, he held the ball outside, then when another DHO got cut off, he put the ball on the deck, changed direction on a drive and hockey assisted a Mykhailiuk three (that missed). He’s quite often the decision-making hub of the offense.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

No upcoming games, but here are some dates that matter in the months ahead:

• April 21?: Draft ties broken. The past two seasons, the draft tiebreak process took place in the league office on the Monday after the playoffs began, which makes sense since the play-in has to be complete before they know which teams are and aren’t in the lottery. Assuming they follow that pattern again, we’ll get word sometime next Monday. This year, it only matters to the Jazz’s incoming second-rounders: the pick from Dallas will either be 42 or 43, and then there’s a 4-way tie involving LAC/LAL/Ind/Den that will determine which pick Utah gets from the Clippers.
• May 12: Draft lottery. The Jazz have never held the No. 1 overall pick, but could after the Monday evening lottery.
• June 25-26: NBA Draft. The draft will once again be split over two days, with (at the moment) two Jazz picks each evening.
• June 29: Deadline for player options and guarantee triggers. Collins’ decision on a $26.6M PO is due this day, and this is also the guarantee trigger date for both Mykhailiuk and Juzang.
• June 29: Deadline for qualifying offers to make players restricted free agents. Two-way players Tshiebwe and Potter are eligible for qualifying offers.
• June 30: Free agency begins. Teams can strike deals as early as 6pm EDT. 
• July 6: Rookie extension window opens for 2022 class. Walker Kessler can sign an extension between this date and the day before the 2025-26 regular season.
• July 25: Partial guarantee for Springer: $400K of his salary gets guaranteed this date, another $200K on opening night, and the rest guarantees as he goes, until January 10.
• October 31: Team option deadlines for rookie scale contracts.Hendricks, Williams, George, Sensabaugh and Collier will all be candidates to have their options exercised.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

Let’s end with a little love for the rookies, who piled on a collective 24 double-doubles over the final three and a half months of the season.

Both players had 100% of their double-doubles after the new year.

I’m really grateful to readers who make the SC7 relevant and a part of their Jazz fan experience. Every year I question whether I’ll keep doing these, and every year I just can’t bring myself to quit. Hopefully you get something out of these weekly check-ins. The Salt City Seven is officially retired until this coming October, but we’ll have a lot to say about an enthralling Jazz season.