Grading the Jazz at the Halfway Point

Hardy and Kessler earn high marks in Mark Russell Pereira’s midseason grades. (Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribune)

Halfway through the NBA season is a perfect juncture to assess where a team is at, individually and collectively, because the rotations have become set, injuries start to balance out, and trade deadline craziness hasn’t blossomed yet.

So let’s take a look at the Utah Jazz, who were a total enigma before the season started. Who has surprised us, and who has disappointed? What have we learned about the new faces, and what remains a mystery? Let’s hash this out with good old fashioned letter grades.

Note that this is not Oprah passing out an ‘A’ to everyone in the audience like in business school, or a law school curve where a ‘C’ actually means ‘F’ but they don’t want your transcript to look bad. C is average! C is adequate! Grades above a C means the player (or coach) is contributing positively to the success of the Jazz and/or is surpassing expectations, and grades below mean that there are difficult issues on the court and we’re left wanting more from them.

With that explanation aside, let’s get to it, starting with the new leader of the team:

Will Hardy: A

First-year coaches generally get a pass in early grading because we really don’t know yet what troublesome tendencies or lineups they’ll too strictly adhere to, and rarely do players have personality issues with a first-year coach. (John Beilein of course was a recent notable exception who pissed off his dudes immediately.) So I’m really looking for two markers of a first-time head coach on a rebuilding(ish) team: (1) the sensibility of the rotation and (2) if the players actually like him and try hard despite losing a lot.

Hardy has nailed them both, from this outsider’s perspective. In a small and fast modern NBA, he’s made tricky three-big lineups work: +3.5 per 100 possessions for lineups featuring starting bigs Lauri Markkanen, Jarred Vanderbilt and Kelly Olynyk, which balloons to +15.1 with Walker Kessler taking the place of Vanderbilt.¹ The bigs are put in the best possible position to succeed defensively, which still isn’t great but could be so much worse given the defensive limitations of the starters (especially the backcourt). Jordan Clarkson is experiencing a mini-leap as a starter with Hardy’s encouragement. All of the bench guys are getting the minutes they deserve; maybe you can quibble with Collin Sexton’s minutes—who still needs to refine his game to earn starter-level run—or Rudy Gay, who is Rudy Gay. Hardy makes the right comments in pressers about the value of threes and assisted buckets.

And it’s not hard to see that this team loves each other, loves playing for Hardy, and has turned what Zach Lowe thought would be an “airport waiting area for players” into a genuinely exciting, pass-first team that isn’t obviously thinking about their next championship-contending destination. That’s really hard to do in the NBA on a team without immediate championship equity. Some credit obviously goes to the returning veterans of Clarkson and Mike Conley, but it’s the primary charge of an NBA head coach and Hardy has greatly met the challenge.

There will be more scrutiny as the years go on when it comes to player development and if any weird tendencies start to develop. But for now, a flawed team playing .500 ball is indicative of Hardy deserving a very strong benefit of the doubt for now.

Mike Conley: C

Conley has said all the right things and motivates himself to play well despite the team not being the championship contender he once hoped for. The team plays better when he’s on the court vs. off, and Utah is 4-7 in the 11 games he’s missed. Conley is also a big reason why the overhauled roster learned to play well together quickly, and Conley’s distribution numbers are the best they have ever been.

But part of the reason Conley’s passing figures are so high is because he just can’t score the basketball very efficiently anymore. Conley is hopeless around the rim now (44%), especially in traffic, and his patented floater is pedestrian at best (40%). His long-range shooting is passable but isn’t very threatening. Sticking a fork in his scoring ability pretty much also sticks a fork in his trade value: no team is trading a first-round pick for Conley. So it looks like Utah is in a weird spot having to keep a winning player on the roster that isn’t really worth trading, unless the team reverts to full mega-tank mode and trades Conley for poor value.

The limited trade landscape is partially an indictment on Conley not being a needle-moving point guard for a contender anymore—he’s just a nice veteran starter, which is acceptable. Given that there is literally no pure backup point guard on the roster², I really appreciate Conley still being in Utah to help the younger talent succeed.

Jordan Clarkson: B

It has been a really solid year for Clarkson, and I am thankful for every minute we get his joyous and electric presence on the court. And while the vibes are great, Clarkson is playing the best all-around basketball of his career. He was directly tasked with making more complete basketball plays instead of just keeping an offense afloat with buckets, and he has firmly delivered. His assists are way up in productive, non-bullshit ways, and will only continue to rise as his brand new frontcourt learns to play with him and Walker Kessler catches a few more interior passes. The additional team-running responsibility hasn’t doused any of his flamethrower abilities, either. Clarkson’s attitude has also been such a comfort blanket for a team initially miscast as random parts learning to play with each other. The numbers bear this out—the fourth-best net rating per 100 possessions on the team (+2.8), and one of only six rotation dudes with a positive net rating on the team, per Basketball Reference.

The thing I thought finally would click in with a new coaching staff is Clarkson figuring out how to draw more fouls. Clarkson’s meandering style and long arms are perfect precursors to baiting defenders to rake his arms on his way up like other efficient guards, but that just doesn’t happen. Clarkson isn’t quite Al Jefferson with an aversion to contact, but he definitely prefers getting a shot up cleanly. That’s fine, but it caps Clarkson’s efficiency and definitely raises concerns about how his game will age as Utah considers an extension.

Clarkson’s defense is still pretty garbage, but at least Hardy is deploying him in new ways to change the challenges from prior years. Quin Snyder used to plug Clarkson in myriad different roles, such as chasing around J.J. Redick/Klay Thompson-esque gunners through tons of screens and actions. This… rarely worked. I think Hardy has simplified Clarkson’s defensive charges more, and I’m okay with Clarkson getting plain-old beat instead of “what the hell was he thinking?” Clarkson’s steal rate is just awful at career-worst marks, and, like his foul-drawing, is a disappointing element to his game given his physical tools.

It’s awesome Clarkson is still in Utah, and I’m glad that a starting role has made him a better player. The playmaking improvement has been a surprise, and I don’t think Utah is anywhere near the playoff race without him.

Lauri Markkanen: A+

The curmudgeon in me wanted to mark this as an A or A- just because there are some areas Markkanen can improve if he is to be a permanent, long-term first banana, but then I had a beer and realized I was wildly overthinking this. Markkanen is a top-2 candidate for the freaking Most Improved Player award. What more could we possibly want at this stage? Markkanen’s performance this year is a platinum-quality victory for Utah, Danny Ainge and Justin Zanik, and, of course, Markkanen himself.

He’s shooting at absurd levels—62.5% eFG% and 42% from three, and drawing fouls at a career-best rate. And while Markkanen’s field goals are largely assisted or set up by others, the passes can come from anywhere and Markkanen will score from all three levels. There isn’t a single play design that ends with a Markkanen shot that I’d be upset with. He also uses his length super well to snag terrible passes and still turn them into points.

Markkanen has the third-best net rating on the team (+4.7), behind Kessler the mind-blowing net rating of Gay, per Basketball Reference. Utah is 11.1 points worse per 100 possessions when Markkanen sits. So with the quantity of minutes he’s played, Markkanen has been Utah’s most important driving force for wins by several degrees. As he did last year in Cleveland, Markkanen still plays a ton of possessions as the ‘third’ big, tasked with guarding smaller, quicker, dynamic swingman threats, and he’s been totally fine defensively. Markkanen is only getting more dangerous and efficient as the season goes on, so the trajectory of his career now has a ceiling completely out of sight. I won’t criticize Markkanen’s total playmaking usage right now because he’s been so dominant everywhere else.

The 49-point outburst moved Markkanen from “Hey I think it’d be kinda neat if Markkanen was an All-Star!” to “I’m writing a letter to my congressperson if Markkanen is not an All-Star.” Top marks for the Finn.

Jarred Vanderbilt: C-

Vanderbilt is a confusing player. He’s exactly who we thought he was: an athletic wing-sized player with more traditional big-man skills and (lack of) range. Vanderbilt’s feel with the ball in his hands—especially on the break—is pretty great and can catch defenses off-guard given his defender is not typically guarding ballhandlers. He provides chaos agent energy that leads to big runs in Utah’s favor, and Vando’s unusual skillset for his size conveniently meshes with Olynyk’s and Markkanen’s skills at their larger sizes.

But almost every Jazz lineup is better when Vando is replaced by someone else. He can’t shoot (the corner threes are cute, but they’re unreliable and not a real skill yet) and doesn’t have touch around the rim. We laud the games with several offensive rebounds, but he quietly has games where that isn’t a factor and ultimately grades out as just a pretty good rebounder underneath his reputation as a top-tier boarding expert. Utah allows a horrific 121.9 defensive rating with Vanderbilt on the court, and he often loses the thread on his assignment(s). There’s no additional rim protection offered, and the penchant for steals doesn’t cover up all of the other defensive issues.

It all results in a player who sets the world on fire when the game script falls into his strengths, but otherwise struggles to belong on the court. It all balances out to an acceptably mediocre season.

Kelly Olynyk: C+

The collective groan from Utah fans when the Bojan Bogdanovic trade was announced could be heard from space, mostly because Olynyk (1) wasn’t a future first round draft pick and (2) hadn’t been relevant for a couple of years as he toiled away in Houston and Detroit.

He makes quirky good plays and quirky bad plays, but unlike Vanderbilt, it tends to be more good than bad (Olynyk’s net rating is about neutral on the season). Olynyk is the prime suspect for why Utah’s rebounding is so poor—he’s putting up his worst defensive rebounding percentage of his career, and opponents rebound a sickening 29.8% of their own misses when Olynyk is on the floor. The free space on a 2022-23 Utah Jazz game bingo card is “will Olynyk complain about an obvious touch foul?” I’m really tired of watching him pick up five dumbass fouls followed by him standing there with his arms in the air or finger twirling for a review.

But he’s shooting a career-best from three, makes so many smart passes that collapse and confuse defenses, and gets his Canadian mittens on enough balls and draws enough charges to make him not the worst defensive center in the world. Olynyk has made Utah better on the floor for the most part, even if he frequently makes us roll our eyes.

Collin Sexton: C

This almost feels like it should be an ‘incomplete’ grade because Sexton deserves the most leniency out of everyone on the Jazz given his injury history and new role. But he’s played enough healthy minutes to assess where his game is at and whether he helps the Jazz or not (or will in the future). It’s been a pretty mixed bag.

Sexton has the juice to get to the rim often, and he incessantly puts pressure there. But he’s only shooting 56% at the rim, which is pretty bad (he shot 62% at the rim in 2020-2021, AKA “that one good season in Cleveland”). I don’t understand his shooting form, but he shoots 38% from three on a difficult array of attempts. The tunnel vision can be a real problem for Sexton (as it can be with Clarkson, too), but this is the part I’m more willing to give some grace on as he matures as a player and learns more of what Hardy is coaching.

His energy and fervor defensively masks the fact that he’s simply not a very good defender. That said, I don’t mind his aggression if he’s playing alongside a guy like Kessler. If you’re going to be bad defensively, energy still means something, so might as well be aggressive and let your excellent teammate clean up your mess. The intense chaos might just net you a turnover or three.

I’ve been pleased with what we’ve gotten from Sexton strictly in terms of this season’s contributions, but some improvement in the second half of the season would make me feel way better about his total career prognosis.

Walker Kessler: A

The reductive summary works just fine here: Kessler has already proved the Jazz got a surefire NBA starter-quality dude with the 22nd pick in the draft, which puts him on the Salt City Hoops Dean’s List. Late first round picks don’t pan out so, so often, and here we are with an obvious long-term piece. Kessler’s position and skillset suggests there may be some questions about top-level ceiling (very small chance at All-Star selections, for example) and roster flexibility down the line (he’s a center with zero range so far). But there are already jokes (just jokes!) about how the Jazz traded away Rudy Gobert and got Rudy Gobert in return.

Kessler is already putting up defensive impact and rim protection numbers that are great for any center, let alone a rookie. We’re used to overanalyzing Gobert’s defensive figures to tell a story, so let’s do so here for Kessler: opponents put up an eFG% of 51.6% when Kessler is on the floor, which is much stingier compared to the league average of 54.4% and the 56.8% when Kessler is on the bench. Teams shoot 69.3% at the rim when Kessler is off the court, but that plummets to 64.2% with Kessler on the floor–Kessler himself is holding opponents to shooting just 54.0% within 6 feet, one of the league’s best marks, per NBA.com. Add a foul rate that is pretty acceptable for a big man, and some decent ability to defend in space on switches, and it results in a player making a real defensive impact at just 21 years old.

The offensive side of the ball is why this isn’t quite an A+. Kessler has really good touch at the rim and is adept at finishing dunks and layups at awkward angles with his gargantuan size. He’s really hard to prevent from scoring if he’s got the ball at the basket. But it is a rare sight to see shots outside of the restricted area, and I’m waiting to see if he has some floater range touch to diversify his interior game. Kessler also jacked up a decent dose of threes in college and missed a huge proportion of them, so I’m curious to see if that can elevate his game even more or if it was just a regrettable college fling. Kessler frequently gets caught by surprise by interior passes that his college teammates couldn’t or wouldn’t even attempt, but I don’t think he has slippery hands. You’d have to give Kessler an A- for his offense, and let’s see if he’ll surprise us with some diversification in the second half of the season.

Malik Beasley: B+

I jumped around a lot while writing this as I picked up a few stats and ideas here and there and wanted to extrapolate them to other dudes, but I never found myself thinking “how does this jive with Malik Beasley?” That’s because Beasley has been such a seamless fit with every player on the roster that we never have to think about it too much. Beas is going to jack up a shitload of threes every night (15.4 three-point attempts per 100 possessions, which is firmly in bananaland territory behind only Stephen Curry and just above Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson) and almost all of them being good looks. Beasley has also started to reliably score in floater range and at the rim, which is critical to keeping defenses honest when defending Utah. Lowe believes Malik Beasley is Utah’s most intriguing and valuable likely trade piece, and I agree. He fits on every team and in every lineup, and he shoots so well that I really don’t ever care how often he fires away.

Beasley has been on the bad end of lots of defensive highlights, but I think his assignments have occasionally been a touch above his pay grade to begin with. He’s getting sic’d on great offensive talent, trying to cover for the weaknesses brought by everyone else not named Walker Kessler. Beasley gets blown by a lot, especially when he’s tired, but I’d never really want to design a defense where Beasley is my point-of-attack stopper anyways. He’s not Jordan Poole-level “attack at all costs” bad. I have devolved to making excuses for him, so I will stop there.

Talen Horton-Tucker: D-

Horton-Tucker’s 2-year-long struggle to recapture the intrigue from his 2020-2021 season continues. That season netted THT the sizeable contract he’s on now (he has an $11 million player option next season), but he regressed a ton last year for the Lakers and hasn’t improved this year. THT was given more leash to start the season than he had last year in Los Angeles because Utah wasn’t intending to fight for a championship, but that leash has mercifully run out.

THT’s shooting from everywhere on the floor is dreadful (42.8% eFG%; 23% from three), which is partially mitigated with a little verve as a barrel-sized point guard with passing chops. Of course, you never really know when he’s thinking “it’s time for me to take this game over” followed by an insane isolation possession finished early in a shot clock that bricks off the left iron. It’s a really rough combination to help make an offense work, especially bench units, and Utah rarely finds good offense with THT at the helm. His individual defense is fine, but a far cry from the 2020 season that showcased him as a possible future star-stopper.

Aside from Markkanen, I think Horton-Tucker’s dunks are the coolest to watch.

Rudy Gay: D

This grade would be an F but for Gay’s absolutely incredible net rating (+13.7; 98th percentile in the NBA), which deserves some scrutiny and benefit of the doubt. Game to game, he finds himself alongside good bench lineups that take advantage of less-experienced opponent reserves. We’re used to Gay frequently finishing possessions poorly (a preposterously bad eFG of 38.9% anchored by 23.5% from three, combined with a poor turnover percentage of 12.1%); and sometimes in downright bizarre fashion (wildly off-target contested threes; hopeless cross-court passes; turnovers off of unnecessary isolation possessions). However, the tiniest balance to this is that Gay’s ghastly shooting and ball control is mitigated by a career-low in usage (15.1%).

Gay defends and rebounds kind of okay for a bench forward, and aside from the occasional white flag on closing out on a shooter, he gives reliable effort and positioning. Gay has played a ton of possessions as the frontcourt mate to Kessler, and those lineups are destroying opponents on both ends of the court. You still shouldn’t trust Gay guarding in isolation, but there’s clearly something very impactful about Gay’s presence defensively for the entire unit.

If the defensive numbers stay intact and his shooting improves to, like, just kind of bad, you could do a lot worse at the forward spot. I, too, think that there’s more long-term benefit in allocating Gay’s minutes somewhere else, but (1) there’s definitely something to Sarah Todd’s explanation of the import of Gay needing to play as a team leader, and (2) if younger dudes aren’t ready to play NBA basketball, shoving them on the court anyways can do more harm than good. Of course, Ochai Agbaji seems to have finally earned some run from Hardy, and you’re probably not going to hurt the development curve of the 26-year-old Simone Fontecchio by letting him screw up here and there, so we’ll see how this changes towards the end of the season if the Jazz are hunting for a playoff spot.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker: D-

I still struggle with the Canadian combo guard’s future. He’s had his moments (see his efficient 40 minutes on the road in Denver leading a shorthanded Jazz squad) and is firmly an NBA guy, but failing to get regular rotation minutes on this team (including relinquishing his role to THT in recent vintage) is an indictment on the various below-average elements to his game.

We want him to be great defensively, but he’s pretty much just a defensive pest who fouls quite a bit instead of being a reliable stopper. And his turnovers are astronomical given the minutes he plays, but part of me wonders if that’s due to mere miscasting of his role. He never was expected to be a playmaking point guard coming out of college, proved that he wasn’t ever going to be a playmaking point guard in New Orleans, and here we are expecting him to be a playmaking point guard in a backup role. He’s a 3-and-D combo guard/wing! Stop doing this to him! He has good basketball IQ to make some reads off the dribble, but his super head-meet-desk turnovers occur when he’s the primary initiator for stretches.

‘Keil has finally delivered an acceptable two-point shooting percentage for the first time in his career, buoyed by a career-high 69% at the rim. He is shooting 41.1% from three (by FAR a career-high), which is legitimately dangerous. There’s probably a real player in here somewhere, but I don’t think we’ll get to see it this season.

Simone Fontecchio: D-

Man, it really seemed Utah had solved the Rudy Gay problem early in the season with Fontecchio (points to sign). Since that time, Fontecchio’s time has been marred by nonstop fouling and turnstile defense, with sparse offensive fireworks. There have been a couple of sad dunk attempts stuffed at the rim. Utah’s worst runs of the season have come with Fontecchio on the court. It’s not all his fault, but his net rating is simply terrifying (-27.9).

Like NAW, Fontecchio is a real NBA dude. I’m hoping his position gives him more of an opportunity in the second half of the season to show his skills on a team that doesn’t have much mid-tier size.

Ochai Agbaji: D

Agbaji has had a nice couple of games off the bench for the Jazz this week, but none of it was really head-turning stuff. It started out 7-for-8 from three (all makes were corner attempts), followed by 0-2 against Memphis (his only two attempts). Agbaji finished a pair of attempts at the rim attacking open space from bad defensive rotations, and delivered a nifty pocket pass to Vanderbilt once in a little two-man game action. He didn’t show anything special defensively and certainly lost a couple battles.

He’s looked lost a ton in the G-League, throwing the ball all over the gym and fouling a lot. I still think Cleveland drafted him for need rather than pure talent (Cleveland still needs a small forward who can defend and shoot), but he has NBA athleticism and a pretty good shooting stroke.

We’re right in the midst of our first real Agbaji exposure this season. He just aced his midterm; let’s see if he can put in the work to raise his grade by the final exam.

Udoka Azubuike: D-

I can’t really give Dok an F just because it’s not his fault that he’s been miscast as an NBA guy for a couple years now. He is what he is at this point and he didn’t fail any expectations of any kind this year. He tries hard and is probably a really useful practice body with his size and athleticism. It’ll be interesting to see if he has a role in Utah when the trade deadline dust settles.

Leandro Bolmaro: D-

He’s having really nice outings in the G-League as the lead ballhandler for the Salt Lake City Stars³, but that doesn’t mean a ton. He hasn’t cracked any meaningful part of Hardy’s rotation. I think he’s the most natural point-position (he’s a 6’6” forward) among all of the bench ballhandlers, so I’m a little surprised he hasn’t gotten some burn as a play-runner instead of THT or NAW, but there’s probably a reason the #23 pick in the 2021 draft is nailed to the bench so far.

And with that, school is back in session for the back half of the season. Perhaps the squad will get some extra credit opportunities with a mini playoff run.