Behind Utah’s Odd Backup PG Battle

Young veterans THT and NAW take turns running Utah’s second-unit offense. (Photos via sltrib.com)

Every game, Will Hardy faces an impossible decision: who the hell runs the offense when Mike Conley is on the bench?

Conley is Utah’s only point guard on the roster. Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton are score-first combo guards who really shouldn’t be full-time table-setters. Leandro Bolmaro profiles as a stereotypical passing wizard from Argentina, but he’s not an NBA-level distributor yet, and is a little bigger and slower. He’s also not earning minutes for a reason despite showing out pretty well for the Salt Lake City Stars.

Which brings us to Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Talen Horton-Tucker. They, too, are not actual, traditional point guards. Alexander-Walker is a lithe, twitchy combo guard who was improperly wedged into a point guard role from the minute he stepped onto the court in New Orleans. Horton-Tucker is one of those strange NBA presences: a bowling ball swingman with an obscene 6’10” wingspan who has operated as a chaos agent since his time at Iowa State.

However, they have been forced into minutes directly in relief of Conley, and Hardy alternates between the two on a near-nightly basis. Once Hardy gets sick of them, he relies on Clarkson and/or Sexton in second halves (and the offense frequently toilet-clogs because of it). But he will attempt every night to see if either of the mercifully acronymically-monikered NAW and THT “has it” that game, with “it” being a demonstration of controlled, effective play-running.

“It” rarely materializes, so we end up with a nightly experience of the NBA’s dumbest Sophie’s Choice experiment. THT and NAW cannot play a pure backup point guard role, but can provide their own weird quirks as lead ballhandlers.

NAW is fast, quick, and is shooting well from three and the rim for the first time in his career. The career-high 41% from three is great, but he’s also scoring at a 72% clip at the rim—a ridiculously dramatic improvement from any point in his previous stops. I’m optimistic the shooting will stick because the form is fine, he’s being set up pretty well, and he profiled as a good shooter at Virginia Tech. But as a set-up guy, he makes you wince and almost shield your eyes entirely—his 18.5% turnover percentage is one of the league’s very worst marks. Too many of his passes badly miss their intended target or are of the “let me whip this pass at my teammate as fast as possible” variety:

Alexander-Walker profiles as a good defender from college, and he’s had some stretches where Holly Rowe won’t stop talking about his defense. He’s literally the only guy the Jazz have that can quickly get over a well-set screen instead of smacking into the screener or haplessly going under. But I just don’t see him as all that effective as a defender. He rarely keeps ballhandlers from getting to where they eventually want to go, even if he provides more resistance on the first or second dribble move than Utah’s other perimeter defenders. NAW fouls way too much for a guard, including many frustrating “too-handsy” calls that put opponents in the bonus way earlier than you’d want. A nice block or steal here and there isn’t enough to classify him as a “good defender.”

On the other hand, THT is kind of like a car crash you see happening long before the first collision, and you just can’t take your eyes away. What will be the end result of a possession set up by Horton-Tucker? Will he meander around the perimeter and jack up a fadeaway three that will clang horribly off the left iron (18.8% from three with 2 or more dribbles; 25% from three overall)?

Will he try a spin move, fall over, and lose the basketball?

pic.twitter.com/C6kb6yHP9R

— dan c. (@danclayt0n) November 5, 2022

Will he careen wildly into the lane and blindly fling the ball vaguely in the direction of the hoop?

Will he get stuck under the rim or in the air, but manage to use his impossibly long arms to smartly spin in a finger roll or reverse layup?

Will he absolutely yam it home with authority?

WHO KNOWS?!

But THT has had legitimately impactful stretches in more games than NAW, and while Utah’s offensive rating sinks by 6.1 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, the defensive rating also sinks by 7.8 points per 100 possessions—a net positive of 1.7. That’s Utah’s 6th best net rating. He’s turned into an underrated menace defending the midrange, but it does come at a cost—Horton-Tucker isn’t quick enough to guard primary ballhandlers or get over screens like Alexander-Walker, so teams usually can get up a healthy dose of threes when defended by THT. That’s a Hardy no-no, so he almost always gets pulled if the defense starts drowning Utah from long range and/or the team desperately needs actual scoring talent on the floor to keep up.

The end result is that Hardy always ends up staring at the same stupid “PRO/CON” list as he decides who to give 8-12 minutes to between Alexander-Walker and Horton-Tucker:

Both carry a great energy about them, are well-liked by teammates and coaches, and genuinely give a shit about trying to make the right play on both ends of the court. They are perfect fliers for the Jazz to extract some improvement from for the rest of this season. Horton-Tucker has a player option he will surely pick up next year, and Alexander-Walker is a restricted free agent. We’ll see if either one shows more consistency and skill to breathe some optimism into their futures as Jazzmen.