Salt City Seven: Key Year for Key, Kessler Swats, Injuries & More

George’s best-case and worst-case outcomes for this season might be the widest spread of any healthy Jazz player, Dan posits. (Francisco Kjolseth, 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 exploration of a big-picture topic

The spotlight during this Jazz season was always going to focus more on certain players than others. One of the more intriguing figures of their season just suffered a devastating injury that will pause his development, and that shifts even more attention onto someone whose trajectory might be more relevant to Utah’s rebuild than any other healthy player.

This season is now largely about finding out more about Keyonte George’s arc as it relates to Utah’s future foundation.

The Jazz have a weird, interstitial roster. Vets like Jordan Clarkson, John Collins and Collin Sexton — with their combined 42,000 career minutes — don’t have a ton else they can prove on a non-competitive team. Lauri Markkanen can certainly refine some things in pursuit of his next leap to all-league level, but this year was never going to be chiefly about him. At the other end of the experience spectrum, Cody Williams was always going to need some time, and others in Utah’s youth brigade were late picks who probably won’t single-handedly turn a franchise around.

In between those extremes you had Hendricks, whose trajectory was going to be a huge focal point this year. George and Walker Kessler had been able to establish themselves a bit more, but Hendricks’ flashes didn’t show until late in his rookie season, and then he used the summer to transform his body and compete for a starting spot. After training camp, it was evident that one of the biggest questions the 2024-25 Jazz could answer to inform their future was whether the recent No. 9 pick could ensconce himself as a starter-level NBA player.

With Hendricks now slated to spend the year rehabilitating after a terrible leg injury, the attention intensifies on the player selected just seven spots after him in 2023. Hendricks’ actual minutes are so far going to some combination of Williams, Brice Sensabaugh and Kyle Filipowski, but it’s too early to expect any of them to perform now in a way that alters the way Utah thinks about its timeline. (If they do, that’s great news.) In terms of where the expectations and development impetus shift, George is now even more under the microscope.

There’s already a rough outline of what Kessler will be in the context of a relevant team’s roster. That’s less true for George; the Jazz have openly admitted that they’re still not sure exactly what he is in a contending team’s construct. (“I’m still not sure he’s a franchise point guard,” Danny Ainge told the media last April. “I think he can play point guard. But I think that he can play off the ball, too, and he’s probably more comfortable with that at this moment in time.”) One way or another, the Jazz are going to have more of a viewpoint about Key and where he fits into their long-term plans in six months. That’s a decent amount of pressure for the 20-year-old.

If he projects as a 6-foot-4, medium-efficiency scoring two-guard… that’s fine, but that prototype is kind of a dime a dozen in the current NBA. That’s why Utah started the process of seeing if they could convert him into a decision-making ball handler on the fly. There have been positive moments, but overall, it’s fair to have doubts. Especially as he begins the current season ice cold.

The 30-24-76 shooting splits won’t last, and the sample size is too small to freak out about percentages at this point anyway. But even at last year’s 39-33-85, it’s just unlikely that type of player is going to run an elite offense with the ball in his hands unless there is major development coming.

There are players who have done it. Query guards who have put up similar shot attempts and efficiency through their first 81 pro games, and you’ll certainly find some cautionary tales, like Trey Burke, Dion Waiters and Jonny Flynn. But there are also some legit All-Stars who started their careers in similar fashion: De’Aaron Fox, Kemba Walker, Darius Garland, even Anthony Edwards. Nobody’s potential should be arbitrarily capped after 81 games.

But that’s exactly why this is a big moment for Key. If the range is somewhere between Flynn (a top-6 pick who was out of the league before his rookie contract ended) and guys who were literal All-Stars once they got their stuff together, then Keyonte’s season could be a real inflection point for the franchise.

That list of early-career comps is purely based on shooting and usage; we could have a similar conversation about George’s decision-making and command of time and situation as the lead ball handler. At some point we’ll do that deep dive, too. For now, suffice it to say that George might be the Jazz player with the biggest difference between what his 2024-25 season could mean to the Jazz on the high and low ends of things.

That’s pretty intriguing when you think about George’s year that way.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“It’s going to be a little bit night-to-night through these next couple of weeks as we try sort out how this group now fits together. There are some voids with Taylor that we’re going to try to fill, (and) there’s going to be some things we’re going to need to adjust a little.”

-Will Hardy on rotation adjustments as the injury bug bites Utah 

That was Hardy’s respond about apportioning out just Hendricks’ responsibilites, before we all knew that Markkanen’s back and Clarkson’s heel would even further stretch a team already lacking proven rotation depth. George and Sexton are also playing hurt, we learned this past week.

Hendricks’ defensive duties might be the toughest part to assign out. He was frequently guarding the opposing team’s best player, one through four. There’s nobody else on the roster who can comfortably take on that type of assignment, so that’s where it’s certainly going to be more “by committee,” the Jazz coach said.

But this quote is more here just to say: less than two weeks in, we’ve arrived at the part of the season when injuries are going to define a ton of what the Jazz are doing. They’ve already used four different starting lineups in just six games. And there’s likely more experimentation coming. 

Stats that tell the story of the week

<31%

The Jazz have now played five straight games with 30+ 3-point attempts and under 31% shooting from deep. Only six teams in league history have had a streak like that, most recently the 2021-22 Thunder. The longest such streak is 6, shared by three teams, so keep an eye on the Jazz’s percentage in Chicago. The Bulls are #1 in the league at limiting opponent 3-point percentage, and the Jazz are 30th on their end of the floor.

28%

Another way of looking at it: only one team in history has started with a worse percentage on threes over the first six games of the season while attempting at least 200: the 2022-23 Lakers. They shot 26.6% over the first half dozen games, whereas the Jazz are at 28.0% currently.

26.7

The league leader in scoring off of turnovers at the moment is a team called “whoever the Utah Jazz are facing.” Utah’s opponents so far have averaged 26.7 points after Jazz miscues. The two single highest games for turnover points this NBA season were the Nuggets’ 39 on Saturday and the Spurs’ 35 on Thursday. That’s a lot of points to spot a team. (Utah’s also last in second chance points allowed, with 21.5 per contest.)

45

Related to the turnover problem: Utah has been outscored by 45 transition points so far this season, the largest deficit in that category in the league.

21

Kessler just had his 21st 5-block performance in the NBA. Only nine active players have had more in their careers, and of those, only Victor Wembanyama entered the league after Kessler. He’s also once again limiting opponents to a paltry 50% (20-of-40) at the rim.

Dissecting a Jazz scoring play from the week

One guy who’s been quietly pretty solid in a new role is second-leading scorer Collins. He has roughly maintained his scoring despite nearly a 6-minute drop in per-game playing time. One thing he’s doing well in particular as he adjusts to coming off the bench is leveraging his versatility against second units that don’t always have a perfect answer to guide someone with his size and skill set.

For example, if you guard him with a medium-size wing, he’s going to notice, and he’s most likely going straight at the poor dude.

On the other hand, when he catches in space and has a more traditional, plodding big in front of him, he has been able to show off some agility that makes him a tough cover for those types of guys.

On the first one, he’s the flare screener but his defender has little interest in chasing Collin Sexton, so this becomes a 1-on-1 possession. Then, because Denver is showing at the level on the next one, Collins is able to slip out of it into empty space. He has just one guy to beat, and that guy (while probably still underrated defensively) isn’t super-duper mobile, so Collins is able to fly past him with the simple double-clutch move.

Collins is averaging 14.7 points per game, and is making 77% of his attempts at the rim.

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

The Game Ball department is an eerily quiet place these days. But that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the best in Utah’s four losing efforts this past week…

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 102, Mavs 110: Collin Sexton. The fact that this was indisputably Sexton is funny, given that Young Bull was pulled early in the game for defensive mistakes. But when he came back, he had a fire in his belly, and racked up 23 on 9-for-11 shooting. The only other real contender for this was John Collins, who had 11 of his 16 in a still-competitive fourth quarter. George (17-5-5) and Markkanen (17-9-2) both had good lines, albeit on inefficient shooting nights.
• Jazz 96, Kings 113: Jordan Clarkson. Without Markkanen in the second half, the Jazz quickly lost contact with the Kings, whose lead ballooned to double digits in the mid third quarter and never shrunk below that level again. But that also made this a “well then Jordan better have it” game, and luckily for Utah, Jordan had it. JC poured in 21, on his most efficient shooting night of the young season. George’s 11 assists were nice, but he continues to struggle mightily to get the ball through the orange thingie: 3-for-13 in this one, including 2-for-10 from outside the arc.
• Jazz 88, Spurs 106: Kyle Filipowski. As a general rule, I don’t like giving this to guys who are eighth in minutes in a given game. But absent a runaway choice, I could justify rewarding the rook for a nice 12 points and five rebounds in his first career start. Collins’ double-double (14 and 11) was probably objectively more important, Sexton rebounded from a clunker for 16 efficient points, and George had 15-4-5. The early 13-0 run was mostly powered by Patty Mills’ 3-point barrage, but he was fairly quiet outside of that minute and a half.
• Jazz 103, Nuggets 129: Walker Kessler. Pretty easy call on this one, even though a lot of his impressive 18-and-14 line came after the game had been decided. He also had five blocks, and held Denver’s players to 3-for-12 shooting around the rim. Johnny Juzang scored 17, including an early burst of 11 thanks to multiple 3-point fouls drawn, and George had eight assists to go with 16 points. But Kessler just continues to look solid in his third season, even though there was no stopping Nikola Jokic in this one.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

After completing their first 4-in-6-nights marathon of the season, the Jazz have a rather light seven days ahead:

• Monday, November 4: Jazz at Bulls. The best 3-point defense meets the worst 3-point offense (by percentages, anyway). Lonzo Ball’s much-awaited comeback lasted all of three games before a separate injury (wrist sprain) took him out again, but the Bulls are still marching along at .500 behind Zach LaVine’s 50-46-82 shooting splits and a resurgence from two-time All-Star Nik Vucevic.
• Thursday, November 7: Jazz at Bucks. To 2021 champs currently inhabit the last place spot in the Eastern Conference, but not because of their stars. Giannis Antetokounmpo (31-12-6) and Damian Lillard (26 a game on 62.5% true shooting) are holding up their end of the bargain, but Khris Middleton is hurt again, and none of the role players are having a good start to the season. Gary Trent Jr., Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton are all under 30% from three, and the Bucks are in the bottom 10 for offensive and defensive efficiency early on.
• Saturday, November 9: Jazz at Spurs. The Jazz will have concluded their season series with San Antonio before Thanksgiving, already trailing 0-1 after Wembanyama laid a 5-by-5 on them last week. Young shooting specialist Devin Vassell still has yet to debut his season due to a foot injury, but Jeremy Sochan is off to his best start yet, and Chris Paul is beginning to get going as well. Starting with the game immediately before this one, the Spurs hit a stretch where they’ll play 14 of 18 at home — including another one against Utah on November 21.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

Kessler just hit another block list milestone: when he deflected an Aaron Gordon paint attempt in Ball Arena on Saturday, he got to 200 unique players blocked. Then Peyton Watson became his 201st customer, but we clearly need to commemorate the 200 mark, especially since it came just 144 games into his career.

Kessler blocked his 200th different NBA player over the weekend. (Stats as of 11/3/24, from NBA.com and B-Ref/Stathead)

Two Salt City Seven columns down and… a lot to go.