Salt City Seven: How Good is Sexton? Plus Prolific Clarkson, Draft Thoughts & More

Sexton is primed for a bigger role. (Trent Nelson, 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. 

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

Once again, we’re bringing you this week’s “Big Question” via a video segment. Let me know how/if you like this format.

This week we tackle a fun and interesting question around Jazz guard Collin Sexton, who some stats say has made a jump into the league’s top 50 or players.

Projecting the Jazz’s place in the broader picture

There are now just six other teams within six games of the Jazz.

The Jazz have the toughest average remaining opponent among this group of teams with between 23 and 33 wins.

Alperen Sengun’s leg injury certainly could change Houston’s trajectory down the stretch, but with their pick heading to OKC it’s not like they have incentive to pull the plug. Likewise, it remains to be seen how Steph Curry’s ankle will affect the Warriors’ play-in/playoff bid, but the 5.5-game gap between them and the Jazz is a lot to cover in 18 games anyway.

It’s a lot more likely that as the days tick away, we’re going to drop the pretense of “playoff watch” and this is going to be increasingly focused on pre-lottery draft position. As for now, Utah is nestled all alone at the ninth worst record. That would give them a 1-in-5 chance at drafting in the top four, and nearly a 97% chance at keeping their pick, owed to OKC if it falls outside of the top 10 at the draft lottery.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“There’s never a bad draft. There’s always good players… When people say [that it’s a bad draft], what they’re really trying to say is there isn’t a lot of obvious things at the beginning. So you have to project and make bets on qualities that you think will fit your team now and going forward, or identify early and try to move up or down to acquire people you particularly like…”

-Jazz GM Justin Zanik, in his appearance on KSL Sports

Now that it’s looking increasingly likely that the Jazz will in fact hold a 2024 lottery pick, Zanik’s thoughts on this draft class felt fairly relevant.

The 2024 draft has been called weak by pundits, but Zanik pushes back on that idea by pointing out that even previous drafts that were dubbed “bad” at the top often produced ridiculously good players. The 2013 is everyone’s go-to example because it yielded 2-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and also Rudy Gobert, both selected outside the lottery. There’s a good chance that this draft contains some future stars, too, Zanik believes.

“Our job is to go find them and identify them, even if it’s not obvious.”

Stats that tell the story of the week

21

The Jazz have now used 21 different starting lineups this season, the ninth most in the league and more than four times the number of unique opening quintets the Sacramento Kings have used (5). Lottery-bound teams like Memphis (38) and Portland (34) have used the most, which other teams like Dallas (32) and Miami (31) have constantly had to reimagine constructions due to injuries. Fifteen different Jazz players have started at least one game, which is the eighth most. Once again, Memphis is tops here with 21 different starters.

68

Utah’s 68 bench points against Washington on Monday were their second highest total of the season; they also scored 80 against Toronto in January. Not surprisingly, both games were Jazz wins. Jordan Clarkson did most of the heavy lifting with 38, and we’ll talk more about him shortly.

59.4%

The Jazz have allowed opponents to shoot above average percentages from 3-point territory in their last four games. That includes permitting the 19th-ranked Bulls to shoot 43.6%. The Bulls average 11.8 made threes per game but had 13 in the first half alone. Then Utah watched as Denver converted 59.4% of their threes, the worst 3-point defensive performance by Utah all year and the 10th best shooting night of any team this season.

+29

With Lauri Markkanen missing all three of last week’s games and Walker Kessler missing a pair, John Collins had to play a much bigger role. The Jazz were +29 (raw) in his 99 minutes this past week, and they lost by 40 in the 45 minutes he rested. (Sexton’s swing with similar: +21 with him on the floor, -32 off.) 

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

Here are the top performers from Utah’s 1-2 week.

Jazz 127, Wizards 115: Jordan Clarkson. The decisive stretch here was a 15-0 run in which Clarkson scored 12 and assisted the other three, so that made this decision fairly easy. The Flamethrower also had five points in a 17-0 first-half run and four points in an 11-0 spurt in the third quarter. In other words, he was involved in every successful stretch the Jazz had, which explains his +21 to go with 38-10-7. Sexton (29 points, 7 assists) made huge plays too, but my personal runner-up was Collins, who had to step up as Utah’s lone big and had 17 points, 15 boards and six blocks.

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 117, Bulls 119: John Collins. Once again, the Jazz were light on bigs, which made Collins’ involvement pretty important, especially against a team with two past All-Stars at center. Collins held down the fort with 25 points and 13 rebounds. After the Jazz went down by eight, Collins hit the next five points on a three and an alley-oop dunk. Sexton also made two clutch threes on a 24-and-7 night, and Brice Sensabagh notching a double-double in his first career start might have been a bigger story… but Collins was the Jazz MVP in this one.
• Jazz 121, Nuggets 142: Keyonte George. Another easy call here. George didn’t just have the best Jazz stat line (29-5-6 on 75.5% true shooting), but he was also the chief protagonist of Utah’s best stretch. He had 16 on 5-of-6 shooting during Utah’s 44-24 third quarter surge, and Sensabaugh added another 10 in the quarter (on his way to 16 overall). With Kessler back, Collins didn’t have the same meaty double-double he had posted in the two previous games, but was still important, and Clarkson pounded his way to 22, mostly by carving his way into the paint.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

As homestands go, this upcoming one is about as tough as they get. Here are a couple of sentences about this week’s three games, part of a 4-game stay inside the confines of the Beehive State.

• Tuesday 3/12: Jazz vs. Celtics. The Celtics reeled off 11 straight wins before starting their current 5-game trip with losses in Cleveland and Denver. Utah will be the final stop for Boston, which holds the league’s #1 garbage-time adjusted offensive rating and the third best defense.
• Friday 3/15: Jazz vs. Hawks. Quin Snyder will work his first game ever in Utah as an opposing head coach, after leading the ball club for eight seasons and piling up 393 regular season and playoff wins. His current club is adjusting to life without Trae Young (broken finger), but are 5-3 since the injury despite important players like Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu also being hurt.
• Saturday 3/16: Jazz vs. Wolves. Speaking of reunions, Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley Jr. and Nickeil Alexander-Walker will all be in Salt Lake City for two straight games, but there’s one Timberwolf Utah won’t have to contend with: Karl-Anthony Towns. They are 3-2 so far this season without KAT, who tore his meniscus and is hoping to return for what Minnesota hopes is a long playoff run if they are to justify the $169 million in 2024-25 salary they already have committed for just their starting five.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

Clarkson breaking Thurl Bailey’s record of 30-point games off the bench was a decidedly cool moment from this past week. But Clarkson isn’t just an elite bench bomber where the Jazz are concerned. He’s one of the more prolific bench scorers in NBA history, period.

Stats via NBA.com and Stathead

The plus-minus number of particularly head-turning for Clarkson. He was actually #1 in Jazz bench plus-minus all-time before posting a -29 in Denver. He might literally be the best Jazz sub ever, and he’s one of the most explosive bench scorers in recent NBA history as well.

This week’s edition was already written before the Jazz signed two free agents, so we didn’t squeeze them into the column… but welcome Darius Bazley and Kenneth Lofton Jr.!