Salt City, Um, Eight: What the Surge Means, Triple Double Fun & More

January 9th, 2024 | by Dan Clayton

Clarkson celebrates his historic performance with teammates. (Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribune)

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. (This week’s entry came a day late due to a busy weekend for your faithful scribe, so you get a bonus day thrown in at no extra cost.)

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

The Jazz are now 11-4 over the past four weeks, sit just half a game outside the Play-In, and will play their next six in Salt Lake City.

It’s amazing what a healthy stretch will do for a team that awoke on December 12 with a 7-16 record.  Walker Kessler played the first eight games hurt, and then from November 8 through Christmas, the Jazz played every single game down at least one and often multiple rotation players.

Now fully healthy, they’ve had some of the season’s signature wins during an 8-2 surge, the best 10-game stretch of Will Hardy’s coaching career. Those wins included a Christmas Eve’s Eve comeback in Toronto, a drubbing of the Dallas Mavericks at home, and Monday’s clever defense in an upset at Milwaukee.

So the big question right now is how much this push has changed the Jazz’s panorama. Considered a lottery lock before their fortunes changes, can the Jazz now begin to dream of some kind of postseason, or at least of conveying their top-10 protected pick to OKC so they can satisfy the nagging obligation before 2026?

Playoffs. The major projection systems out there are still pretty bearish on the Jazz’s playoff hopes despite the improved play. The Simple Rating System-based model at B-Ref has upgraded Utah’s playoff odds from “dream on” to 1.7%. Neil Paine’s rankings at The Messenger give Utah 0.7% odds, but those bump to 3.4% when combined with implied betting market odds.

If you’re still hoping for the Jazz to make the playoffs, the projection system you should hope is most accurate is the BPI model at ESPN. That one gives the Jazz a 9.9% chance.

Of course, those models only know as much as they know. Probably none of them would have predicted this 11-4 surge, so take these for what it’s worth. I always like to point to the 2010-11 season, when the Jazz were 27-13 in January and projection models had them as a surefire playoff team. Months later, their star player was in New Jersey, their coaching legend was in a rocking chair, and they were picking 11th in the draft.

But at least as of today, the Jazz are still considered a long shot where that particular goal is concerned.

Play-in. What’s slightly more slightly is that the Jazz at least fight their way to the top 10 and give themselves a puncher’s chance in the Play-In Tournament.

B-Ref gives them a 9.5% chance to at least make the Play-In, and BPI gives them a 31.9% shot. (The Messenger’s forecast doesn’t include that in its projections.)

The motivation level of teams around them could play a big role in whether or not the Jazz can crack the top 10. Golden State, the Lakers and Houston don’t control their picks, so there’s no reason for them to pull the plug to improve draft position. Those are currently the three teams closest to Utah in the standings.

OKC pick. The Jazz still have to satisfy a debt to Oklahoma City for when they absorbed Derrick Favors’ salary in 2019. The pick is top 10 protected, but there are reasons to believe Utah really wants to get outside the protected range so the pick conveys now.

First, the 2024 draft is considered weaker than 2025. Also, the Jazz have 3-way swap rights on Cleveland and Minnesota picks in 2026, but only if they themselves have a pick to swap. If the OKC debt is taken care of before then, Utah will get the most favorable of Cle/Min/Uta in that draft, essentially tripling their chances of a nice boon if any of those three teams has a down year. Because of that, the ’26 pick is one the Jazz value highly within their asset cache, so letting it disappear is not ideal.

B-Ref is currently projecting the Jazz to finish 7th worst, which would mean the pick would protect and Utah would only have one shot (in 2025) of conveying the pick to OKC before their 3-way 2026 swap loses its value. The Messenger also projects them 7th worst, and nearly six full games removed from the 11th draft spot (pre-lottery). Again, the good news hear from the pro-“convey now!” crowd comes from BPI. It has the Jazz at 9th worst, in a tight cluster where 1.5 unbudgeted wins could mean getting the OKC debt solved.

So… the nice stretch hasn’t materially changed the way these models view the Jazz’s big picture. Trades, injuries, and a sustained improvement in play could force that math to change in Utah’s favor, but it’s going to have to come at the expense of a team that presently thinks of itself as a playoff team. All three projection models view (in some order) the Lakers, Suns, Warriors, Kings and Rockets as the most catchable teams in the West. When it comes to draft position, even East teams like Chicago, Atlanta and Brooklyn will help determine the Jazz’s fate on the OKC pick.

That doesn’t mean the 11-4 stretch hasn’t been fun, important, or encouraging in a future sense. But the spreadsheets need more than 15 games to change their minds about the 2023-24 Utah Jazz.

 

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“You know, I had to do something to leave my mark. Love, always.”

–Jordan Clarkson, after registering the first Jazz triple in nearly 16 years

Clarkson grabbing that 10th rebound against Dallas is easily the moment from this past week that will live on the longest in our memories. It ended an absolutely silly streak of almost 16 years without a Jazz regular season triple double.

How bonkers was that drought? There were 1,205 regular season triple doubles in the NBA between Carlos Boozer’s on February 13, 2008, and Clarkson’s last Monday. Every single team in the league had registered at least 10 over that span (Atlanta), but some like OKC (159) and Denver (120) had enjoyed over a hundred. The streak is so old that the New Jersey Nets had multiple triple doubles since the Jazz’s last one.

But I also couldn’t help but think while watching that video that Clarkson’s choice of words was interesting. “Leave my mark?” Is that just a casual reference to making franchise history, or is Clarkson for one reason or another thinking about his Jazz legacy? As of Sunday, the dynamic bench scorer is now officially eligible for trade, with a contract that pays him nearly $23.5 million this season, but just $14 million and change in each of the next two.

For now, though, Sixx is here, and he’s forever part of one of the weirdest stats in Jazz history.

 

Stats that tell the story of the week

5,801

To build on the above, that’s the number of days between Boozer’s triple double in 2008, and the very next Jazz regular season triple double: Clarkson’s from Monday night..

302

That’s the total number of points scored in Jazz-Pistons on Wednesday, which per the fantastic Ben Anderson is the most combined points in a Jazz game in history. There was just very little effective defense played on either end of the court. It was the Jazz’s best single game offensive efficiency of the year (141.3), but also one of their three worst defensive outings (131.0).

87.4

From the nobody-can-miss game against Detroit, the Jazz went straight to Boston for perhaps the worst offensive night of the year. It was a season-worst performance in ORtg (87.4), first half points (40), true shooting (44.5%) and 3-point shooting (17.6%).

18+

The Jazz went into Saturday’s game as one of last two teams in the league without a regulation game where four or more players scored 18+ points… and then they had two straight. Clarkson, Lauri Markkanen, Collin Sexton and John Collins each went for 18 or more in Philadelphia, and then those four plus Keyonte George each had between 19 and 21 points on Monday in Milwaukee. Only Minnesota still hasn’t had such a game this season. 

11

The Jazz hit a bunch of superlatives with their hot start in Milwaukee, starting with the fact that their 11 first-quarter threes tied a franchise record for triples in any quarter (vs. Cha 2/23/21 was the other one). It was also tied for an NBA season-high in first-half threes (16), and it was the third biggest halftime lead by a road team this year (Orlando @ Indy, OKC @ Portland, both on 11/19/23).

14-0

The Jazz are the only NBA team remaining that has not lost a game in which they led at halftime.

 

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

Even before we throw in the extra Monday night win into the mix, this was a busy week in the Game Ball department.

Jazz 127, Mavs 90: Jordan Clarkson. Once Clarkson grabbed that rebound at 2:28 in the 4th, there was no chance this was going to be anybody else. Even before then, he was at worst co-MVP with Simone Fontecchio. The latter powered the Jazz early with his best NBA quarter ever: 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting on his way to a season high-tying 24 for the night. But right from when Clarkson entered, he was just as impactful: he assisted nine points in his first five minutes and hit three of his first four shots. And yeah… if you do something that hasn’t been done in 15 years, 10 months and 8 days, you get the Game Ball — the real one and this fake one that matters less.

Jazz 154, Pistons 146: Walker Kessler. I was surprised that even the fan vote on this one went Kessler. Clarkson was awesome, with 16 of his 36 in the fourth, and Markkanen had 31 and 7 and was Utah’s Win Probability Added MVP per Inpredictable. I try pretty hard not to overthink these when multiple guys have 30-plus on efficient shooting, but Kessler was massively important. He had a team-best +23.2 net rating because he was really the only thing working for the Jazz defensively. The Pistons shot 4/14 at the rim with Kessler nearby, and all told just 6/21 (28.6%) anytime Kessler was the primary defender. He had six blocks, played 29 minutes, and was on the court for Utah’s best stretches.

Jazz 120, Sixers 109: Lauri Markkanen. He was quite easily the best player on the court, posting 33 (on 19 shots) and 13. He was also quite good defensively, even as the de facto center. The Jazz like to try to get away with small lineups defensively by playing zone with Markkanen in the middle, and he’s holding up. In this one, he held Sixers personnel to 4-of-17 shooting as the primary defender. Sexton (22 and 10 assists) and Collins (19 on 9/10 shooting and a ton of attacking plays) were the other candidates.

Jazz 132, Bucks 116: Kris Dunn. You could make a solid case for George, who responded when things got close by hitting a layup, a three, and an and-one floater before assisting a Clarkson bucket. But in addition to Dunn’s 13 assists and +20.8 net rating, he was also the key piece in Hardy’s defensive scheme. As the designated help-and-rotate guy in a game plan centered on shortening Giannis Antetokounmpo’s runway, Dunn probably covered more miles of hardwood than anybody else as he whipped all around and helped Utah claim a 33-point advantage. But really, candidates galore: Markkanen started slow but found his way to 21-and-14, Collins had another 19, Sexton’s first-half heater helped him to 19 in limited minutes, and Clarkson logged 21-4-6.

Strong in defeat:

  • Jazz 97, Celtics 126: Lauri Markkanen. I guess we’ll go simplistic here since Lauri was the top scorer and I always love when he piles up a decent number of assists (5), but there weren’t really great options in the week’s only real clunker. Collins has 12-and-11, but was -28 for the game.

 

Breaking down the Xs and Os behind a Jazz score.

Usually this space is reserved for a specific bit of clipboard wizardry that resulted in a Jazz score. But some stuff is too sweet to ever come out of a play design; this week, we’re just going to look at JC being JC.

Clarkson somehow had TWO transition overhead flip passes in the same game this week: first for a Dunn dunk and later for a Markkanen three. Both times, he never even appears to look behind him 

What’s crazy is both these plays happen well before the game had become a blowout win. The Jazz are up 12 before the Dunn dunk, but it’s super early, and they’re ahead by just six when Clarkson whips a blind pass over his head to Markkanen for an actually crucial 3-pointer. How many guys dare throw this pass not just once but twice in the same close game?

But what’s even wilder is that these were 100% the right basketball plays both times. The first one is fairly simple basketball, Dunn is the trailer in a 2-on-1 situation. But the Markkanen play is Clarkson cataloguing what a teammate would be doing in that type of semi-break situation. Markkanen faked a flare screen and then drifted in front just in case the driving Clarkson needed an outlet. Here’s the thing, though: he didn’t. Clarkson beat his man without a screen, so if you pause the video at :13 you’ll see that he’s got a wide open layup. But in the corner of his eye/consciousness, realizes where Markkanen is going to be.

Also noteworthy: these were two of the 11 assists that made up Clarkson’s historic triple double.

 

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

The Jazz will be home for six straight. Here’s a couple of sentences about each of their games this week.

  • Wednesday 1/10, Jazz vs. Nuggets. Denver is settling in after an uneven start, at 12-3 over a stretch where Jamal Murray is averaging 23 and Nikola Jokic is shooting 65-50-90. The man is a walking cheat code.
  • Friday, 1/12: Jazz vs. Raptors. The Raps look a little different from the night of Utah’s comeback win in Toronto last month, having replaced OG Anunoby with RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley. Those two are averaging 21 and 17 as Raptors, respectively, and the crew is 3-1 since adding them.
  • Saturday, 1/13: Jazz vs. Lakers. After four straight losses as part of a protracted 2-9 funk, the Lakers finally got a palate-cleansing win over the in-town rival Clippers. But there’s a pretty clear ceiling offensively for a team that doesn’t take threes (second lowest 3PAr), doesn’t offensive rebound (second lowest OReb%), and has been reluctant to start its only three plus-efficiency scorers together.

 

Random stuff from the Jazz community

Like most people who watched the Jazz between 2017 and 2019, I love me some Ricky Rubio. Long before his time in Utah, I loved chatting with Rubio when he came through town, and one of my favorite deep dives during the 2017-2022 era was a feature on just how much of the Jazz’s success hinged on Rubio.

But perhaps my favorite Rubio clip ever predated his Jazz days:

It’s always heartbreaking to learn that people who bring you and others so much joy have themselves gone through dark, challenging times. I’m glad Rubio got through what sounds like an intense ordeal last summer, and that he has the courage to make the decisions that are right for his health. Seeing him remind others to enjoy the journey is just so fitting as we celebrate his. I also remember a video where Rubio talked about his strategies for managing his mental wellness.

Congratulations on a splendid, unique and fun NBA career, Ricard. Be well.

The halfway point is just around the corner!

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