Salt City Seven: Young Guy Glut, Pick Watch & More

April 9th, 2024 | by Dan Clayton

Keyonte George’s progress is something to watch over the season’s close. (Darron Cummings via sltrib.com)

Every week during the regular season begins 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. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz. 

A quick look at the big, burning question of the moment in Jazzland

Stretches of 3-23 basketball, it turns out, are not loads of fun.

It’s not really a surprise, then, that the conversation about the 2023-24 Utah Jazz has shifted towards imagining what the team could look like on the other side of what could be a pivotal summer. There’s no telling just how different next year’s roster could look after the Jazz complete what will wind up as either the sixth or seventh worst of the club’s 45 Utah seasons in terms of win totals. 

Some roster churn is almost a given at this stage of the rebuild, but that might movement might not be limited to the veterans. Here’s why.

Utah already has a lot of young talent on the roster and could be adding three rookies all selected in the first 32 picks. While in Phoenix last weekend, my discussions with the elder basketball nerd in the Clayton family reminded me just what it would mean if Utah brought all their young guys back and used all three draft selections. There roster would then feature the following first-, second- and third-year players:

  1. Keyonte George, entering his second season
  2. Taylor Hendricks, also in year two but having played just 40 NBA games
  3. Brice Sensabaugh, second year but with just 600 or so NBA minutes under his belt
  4. A rookie drafted with Utah’s own pick, unless the lottery is especially cruel and Utah has to surrender the pick to OKC
  5. Another rookie drafted in the 20s with an OKC pick owed to the Jazz
  6. A rookie drafted with the first or second selection in the second round
  7. Walker Kessler, entering year three
  8. Johnny Juzang will also be entering his third year, and will be ineligible to remain on a two-way, meaning that if he stays, the Jazz will need to use a standard roster spot for him

That’s eight players who, if retained, would be on the 15-man main roster. That’s probably too many. That’s before we count Jason Preston, who technically could come back on a two-way; I also left off Kenneth Lofton Jr. for now since he’s non-guaranteed and has played just 12 Jazz minutes so far.

Consider this writer skeptical that the Jazz would build a team with more than half of their main roster spots allocated to guys in the first three years of their careers. Eight players with under 160 games each would be a lot of work for the development staff. Even in a blatant rebuilding year, this year’s Jazz had just five such players on standard contracts until Lofton signed his rest-of-season deal.

It’s likely that something has to give there. Players don’t often move early on in their rookie contracts, but the Jazz showed with the Ochai Agbaji deal that they’ll be unemotional about moving on from rookie-scale guys if it means another opportunity for a “swing.” And at some point there is such a thing, even for a rebuilding team, as having too many kiddos.

So then, with four games left, one of the big questions at hand is how George, Hendricks, Sensabaugh, Kessler and Juzang are going to lay claim to future roles on the team.

  • George has been good enough to be a likely all-rookie selection, but projections about his future ceiling are probably going to be tied to his shot-making ability. He’s had some brilliant moments, but overall is a 53% true shooter, 39-33-86 splits. We talked about it last week, but lead guards who aren’t frequent paint attackers sort of need to be more of an off-the-bounce threat. George’s process and stroke look good, but at some point more of those shots need to go in or else we’re going to be forced to reimagine his future as a rotation guard vs. a star ball handler. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s the calculation right now.
  • Hendricks remains most tantalizing on the defensive end, as we covered at length in last week’s SC7 video. On the offensive end, he’s up to 39% on catch-and-shoot threes, and anything beyond that in terms of offensive contributions is probably gravy right now. Eventually he’ll learn to do more, like this second-side drive with a crafty step-through finish after the defense had shifted. But for now it’s enough just to space the floor and defend multiple positions.
  • Sensabaugh has gotten to show more of his scoring chops in a feature role, but like George, his true shooting needs to climb higher than his current 51% before he’s contributing to a good team’s rotation.
  • The narrative on Kessler suggests a step back from his all-rookie campaign last season, but he’s likely to finish the year with the best rim defense percentage of the top 20 or so rim challengers in the league (currently at 50.9%). The Jazz probably want to see some more cross-scheme understanding from Kessler, and he also lost a little zip on the offensive end. His fit next to John Collins is an ongoing puzzle.
  • A month ago, this writer would have expressed skepticism about Juzang getting an qualifying offer tendered to him. (Utah needs to offer him a partially guaranteed standard contract to retain his matching rights.) But he’s done really well with the added opportunities. His 3-point shooting is up to 40% (on a small sample) and Utah’s drawing stuff up to bring him off screens and deploy him in a pretty interesting way.

Those are probably the biggest things to watch for over these final six nights of 2023-24 Jazz action. 

 

Projecting the Jazz’s place in the broader picture

The various pick-watch scenarios are becoming pretty clear with four games left ……. 

The range of possible outcomes for Utah’s three 2024 draft picks is narrowing.

At this point, Utah probably hangs onto the eighth best lottery odds. Even if Brooklyn closes 0-3, I’m not sure I see two wins on Utah’s schedule, given their current available players. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine where Memphis finds two wins to get to 29.

The race for #1 in the West will keep the pressure on OKC, Denver and Minny to keep trying. Since Denver and Minnesota still play each other, the range for that pick is looking like 27 to a tie for 29. A tie with LAC at 26/27 would do nothing for the Jazz since they’d get the lesser of those two in any scenario.

And that second-round pick remains pretty valuable, especially since the draft is split into two nights this year, meaning the teams with early seconds will have nearly 24 hours to field calls for their selections.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“There are a lot of different methods to teach. There are a lot of different methods to hold people accountable. We’ve cycled through a bunch of those methods and sometimes minutes are the only thing that will reveal to you what needs to be done.”

-Hardy after altering the rotation midway through Utah’s loss in L.A. 

It was a safe assumption when Utah traded three rotation players and subsequently mothballed a few others that the Jazz’s first-round rookies were going to play a ton of minutes down the stretch, almost no matter what.

Not so fast, said Hardy.

The second-year head coach sent the message loud and clear on Friday night that even with the options being depleted, young guys are going to have to earn their minutes through hard, smart play. George, Hendricks and Sensabaugh did not start the second half, and all three were lapped in minutes by newcomer Darius Bazley, two-way Juzang and seldom-used Talen Horton-Tucker.

Message received? It would seem so. All three rookies had better outings on Sunday, although Hardy did mention that once again his starting group struggled to apply the game plan in the opening minutes. Regardless, it was a gutsy move by a coach who clearly wants to ensure that even amid a long losing streak, he maintains the attention of the young guys and credibility with the dudes who do execute the game plan night to night.

 

Stats that tell the story of the week

3-23

The Jazz’s current 3-23 slide ties a nearly half century-old mark for futility. The last Jazz team to post just three wins *any* 26-game stretch in a single season is — get this — the inaugural New Orleans Jazz. 

-26

It’s pretty hard to lose the paint battle by 26 points and also get outscored by 12 at the 3-point line, but that’s what Utah did against the Clippers on Friday night. They also lost in bench points (-7), fast break points (-8), but did claim a 21-12 advantage on second chance points.

12

Darius Bazley’s 12 in that Clipper game were the most points ever by a player making his first appearance in a March or April Jazz debut.

27

Juzang’s 27 in San Francisco on Sunday were the highest point total in a game by a Jazz two-way player. (Two-way contracts only came into existence in 2017.)

 

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

We’re not sure if the Game Ball department will get called back into the office this season, but for now we’ll keep churning out consolation prizes after Utah’s losses — including three guys who were not in Utah’s rotation a mere two months ago.

Strong in defeat:

  • Jazz 113, Cavs 129: Brice Sensabagh. Just 48 hours after setting a new career high, Sensabaugh matched it in what I would call his best pro game yet. He had the same 22 points, but this time on more efficient 8-for-14 shooting, to go with seven rebounds and four assists. Sexton willed his way to 19 on a rough shooting night, and Hendricks also equaled his 2-day-old career high with 18. 
  • Jazz 102, Clippers 131: Darius Bazley. Talen Horton-Tucker had 17, but on 5-for-14 shooting, so I’m going with Bazley, whose 12 points, three steals and six boards were all more impressive considering these were the first 33 minutes of his Jazz career. As outlined above, that was the best March/April Jazz debut ever, which is enough to edge out THT’s slightly higher scoring, Omer Yurtseven’s 12-and-7, and Sexton’s inefficient dozen. (Kris Dunn was also +5 in a 29-point blowout.)
  • Jazz 110, Warriors 118: Johnny Juzang. Juzang had 22 points in the first half alone, and his 27 for the night blew away his previous career high (19). George had a pretty efficient 25 (8-for-16, four threes, perfect on five freebies), but Juzang was clearly the bigger story, as right from the get-go he forced the Warriors to adjust their coverages after a 3-for-3 start from outside.

 

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

No gimmes left on the Jazz’s schedule, as all of their remaining opponents have winning records.

  • Tuesday 4/9: Jazz vs. Nuggets. Denver is still locked in a tight race for the No. 1 seed, and because their tiebreaker situation with OKC and Minny, they pretty much need every win they can rustle up. Jamal Murray was back Sunday after a 7-game absence, but now Aaron Gordon has what’s being called a foot strain; Denver is 38-12 (62-win pace) when those two and Nikola Jokic appear together.
  • Thursday 4/11: Jazz vs. Rockets. The Rockets have lost all five games since they bested the Jazz by a point just before Easter, and the result of that skid is that they too are out of playoff/play-in contention and playing out the string. That makes this the most likely win in Utah’s final week, especially now that Jalen Green has cooled off: 18.6 points on 23% outside shooting after averaging 30 points on 45% from deep in the 11-game win streak.
  • Friday 4/12: Jazz @ Clippers. Depending on how LA’s home-and-home set with Phoenix goes before they face the Jazz, they could be settled into fourth before tip-off. The bigger question is what’s going on with Kawhi Leonard: he’s missed four straight, and the Clips are notoriously mum about their superstar’s health.
  • Sunday 4/14: Jazz @ Warriors. Lakers-Warriors on Tuesday will go a long way to determining how intense the close will be for GSW, which has already clinched a play-in spot. With a win in Tinseltown, the Warriors would pull to within a half game of the Lakers for ninth and also clinch the tiebreaker, meaning homecourt in the first play-in game would be within reach — technically, they could still catch the Kings, Pels or Suns, too.

 

Random stuff from the Jazz community

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One more of these coming before we shift into offseason mode!

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