Salt City Seven: Sexton’s Turn, Adieu Mike, Forecasting the Finish & 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 dissection of a big-picture topic or burning question relevant to the week in Jazzland.

After a midweek trade that sent away three rotation veterans and a deep bench guy, there will surely be mutliple beneficiaries in terms of minutes and opportunities. Talen Horton-Tucker has played roughly as many minutes since the trade leaked on Wednesday evening as he did in the previous 10 Jazz games. Ochai Agbaji had already cracked the back of the rotation, but was 12th in total minutes played when Jazz brass pulled the trigger, and two of the players traded were guards ahead of him in minutes, both within an inch of his listed height.

But perhaps nobody is in the spotlight quite as much as Jazz guard Collin Sexton. In short: it’s Young Bull’s turn.

Mike Conley’s departure in the rotation-altering swap leaves a giant hole at point guard. Jordan Clarkson is a gunner who has the ball in his hands a lot, and Horton-Tucker has had some nice moments as a fill-in offense-runner in reserve minutes. But the Jazz don’t have a real point guard remaining on the roster, unless somehow Russell Westbrook really does suit up at some point.

That makes this a great time to find out how the Jazz’s development project is going as they try to mold Sexton into a different type of ball handling guard. In the last three games, Sexton has averaged 71 touches per game and a possession time of 5.7 minutes per contest, well above his season figures of 46.7 and 3.8.

Since the Jazz signed Sexton to a 4-year deal as part of a trade last September, they’ve been fairly open about wanting him to hone certain skill sets. Already, he’s a jackhammer with the ball in his hands, capable of bursting through the first line of defense and getting both feet in the paint.

Where Clarkson employs guile and a deep bag of tricks once he gets inside the lane, Sexton instead pounds his way in, using his muscular build to simply power from point A to point B. That’s especially true in halfcourt, which helps explain his elite-for-a-guard free throw ratio (.438 FTAs per every FGA). Among ball handling guards, only superstard James Harden, Damian Lillard, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have higher rates.

His foul drawing and his 53% shooting on drives mean that 72.4% of his forays into the paint end with points. That figure is right in between Donovan Mitchell and Luka Doncic for 11th best (among players who drive at least nine times per game). Watch how easily he scored here, without even needing a pick:

Or, in that same game, watch how he accelerates after a made free throw on the other end.

Four seconds. That’s how much time elapsed between a free throw on the other end and the time the ball cleared the bottom of the net on that Sexton blur.

Sexton is also getting much better at shooting off the bounce: 48.8% on pull-up threes (on an admittedly small sample size), and 56.6% overall eFG% on shots taken as a dribbler. That too is a key ingredient to success and a pick-and-roll guard.

You can start to see why the Jazz are excited. Someone who can get into the paint at will, finish well, draw contact AND punish sagging defenses with the shot is a pretty lethal weapon. If the Jazz can combine that — and herein lies the big “if” with Collin Sexton — with better court awareness and passing, then suddenly you have something pretty exciting.

That will largely be what these next 25 games are about for Sexton. The Jazz are going to be putting him in situations where it’s not just about eviscerating everything in his path between him in the rim. You’re going to hear the word “reads” a lot when it comes to evaluations of Sexton the rest of the way.

There are some encouraging signs early on. For example, looking at where Walker Kessler is in this still, it’s actually somewhat surprising that this action directly leads to an alley-oop for the big man. It hasn’t been uncommon for Sexton in a situation like this to put his head down and focus on beating the switch. Instead, he actually pauses here for a beat to let the play develop. That patience gives Kessler time to finish the cut down to where a smaller Raptor has no chance of affecting his shot.

This play ends in a Sexton-Walker alley-oop.

Sometimes you can almost see him thinking through the reads, and that’s actually OK too. On another play in that Toronto game, he got the ball on the break and was in a 2-on-1 on that side of the floor. He correctly dribbled toward the lone defender and my inner monologue was screaming “OK pass to the corner guy, pass to the corner.” He eventually did, although the recipient of said pass is a 25% 3-point shooter.

A corner three that wide open is nearly automatic points for most non-THT members of the Jazz’s wing corps, so this is 100% the right read by Sexton. This type of read may come more naturally to him some day; for now, it’s actually really important that he’s learning to think his way there. Similarly, he had a play two or three trips later where he identified Udoka Azubuike alone under the rim about a quarter second after the exact optimal moment. Dok was already past the apex of his jump when the ball arrived, but it still worked for two points. In a way, I’m actually comforted seeing Sexton work through the mental process of, “Hey, there is a guy down there who needs the ball, I should get it to him.” That’s the first step in that pass becoming automatic at some point.

Sexton isn’t going to be John Stockton. That’s fine. He just needs to make enough heads-up plays to really weaponize his knack for getting into the lane and his improving pull-up jumper.

If he becomes a guy who can do all of those things with the ball in his hands, his trajectory changes, and with it the Jazz’s. And now, he’s certainly going to have the chances to work on it plenty with the amount of minutes and touches he’ll see post-trade. It’s his turn. Let’s see what he makes of it.

In the words of Jazz players/people

“Just him being accepting of everything, everybody. Him having an understanding. The guy was like Yoda, honestly. He had so many stories, and had such a very enlightened part about him.”

-Clarkson on Conley

The now longest-tenured Jazz player (at just over three years and a month) had that to say about the previous longest-tenured Jazz player, who learned a little before Wednesday’s game that he wouldn’t be suiting up with his team that night. Instead, Conley was traded to Minnesota in a deal that returned Utah a premium draft asset but not much present-day help.

Conley’s impact on the Utah Jazz is obvious, if also hard to measure. The veteran guard’s counting stats started to decline after his arrival in Utah, and yet his impact metrics were so elite that he earned his first All-Star selection in his second Jazz season anyway. He brought out the best in his teammates, to the point that virtually everyone he played with in Utah had a better efficiency differential playing next to Mike than they did when he sat.

He ended his Jazz career fourth in assist average for the franchise, and his offensive rating as a Jazzman trails only Rudy Gobert, John Stockton, Adrian Dantley and Jeff Hornacek. He has more double-digit assist games (20) than any Jazz player since Deron Williams was traded. After some adjusting after his 2019 arrival, he unlocked a new level in the Jazz.

And yet Clarkson is right: much of what the Jazz will miss most about him has to do with Conley the man.

Key stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week

21

THT is another guy making the most of his opportunity and trying to fill the Conley creation void. He has 21 assists in his last three games, and is also averaging 15.7 points over that span. His 3-point shooting (25% for the year) remains an issue, but Will Hardy and the Jazz are leaning into what he can provide: mostly spinning, scooping drives and good court vision.

131.1

The losses to Minnesota (147.3) and New York (130.2) this past week were both among Utah’s worst defensive performances of the season. The Knick game was mostly a function of recurring themes: not forcing turnovers, allowing second-chance points, and really terrible transition D. The Minny game, on the other hand was a total anomaly: Utah’s 131.1 defensive rating *in halfcourt* was their worst night of the year in that department.

14

Utah’s lone win of the week came courtesy of a 22-4 closing run in Toronto. They finished the game with a stretch of nearly seven minutes where they scored on every single trip: 30 total points on their last 14 offensive possessions.

9-15

Lauri Markkanen is in the midst of a rare struggle: just 28.6% from deep in his last five, including a 1-for-7 clunker against the Mavs on Monday. Utah is 9-15 when he shoots 30% or worse from outside (or doesn’t play).

541

Aside from Westbrook and the lightly protected future pick Utah got in the trade on Wednesday, they also picked up two bench guys from L.A.: Damian Jones and Juan Toscano-Anderson have logged just 541 combined minutes this season.

Projecting the Jazz’s place in the bigger picture

The hot topic post-trade is: how good or bad will the Jazz be over their final 24 games, now down three rotation players and a spunky deep bench piece?

Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt had the lowest net ratings of the main rotation players, and the Jazz were able to play pretty well (+4.2 and +3.6, respectively) when those two sat. So from that standpoint, the trade shouldn’t cost the Jazz too many wins. Nickeil Alexander-Walker had a positive net rating and was having a career-best shooting year, but played sparingly.

All lineups without those three or Conley in them, have a net efficiency of -0.7, equivalent to that of a 39-win team. But that might overstate the quality of the remaining Jazzmen when you consider that they’ll be stretching guys out to more minutes, and increasingly pitting their reserves against starter-caliber opponents. The new starting five has an efficiency differential of -1.5 (38-win territory), no other lineups excluding the four departed guys have played more than 31 minutes, so the sample size isn’t really steady there. That -0.7 number might erode as some of those small-sample quintets get more time — and against prime opponent groups.

Another way of forecasting the Jazz’s performance over the next two months: they are now 16-24 (a 33-win pace over 82) since their hot start.

Generally All-Star weekend is precisely when we start using this space for my playoff race graphics — but I’m a bit conflicted about whether to focus on the race unfolding above them or, you know, the other direction. Check here next week for… some version of something.

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

It’s mostly consolation prizes this week, but the one fake Wilson goes to the guy we led with in this week’s SC7:

Jazz 122, Raptors 116: Collin Sexton. You could easily give this to THT, who had three assists and a layup to kickstart the Jazz’s closing 22-4 run, and would assist two more before it was all said and done. For the night, Horton-Tucker had a fun 9-7-8 triple-single line, but made plays on both ends when it mattered. I just thought Sexton’s 22-5-6-2-2 mattered much more, both in that game and in the vein of what we talked about above: him needing to establish himself as someone who makes the team better. Kessler (23 and 9) was the endpoint of a lot of fun plays, and Markkanen had, oh, just a 23-and-9 himself along with a season-high-tying 5 assists. So basically there are four guys I’m going to fill guilty about not giving it to. Sexton wins this one at least partially on narrative points.

Strong in Defeat:

• Jazz 111, Mavs 124: Jordan Clarkson. Nobody played particularly well against a Luka Doncic-less Mavs team, but Clarkson, despite 0-for-5 from three, had the best night. He scored 26, including a 10-point fourth quarter while the Jazz were trying to keep things interesting. He also had the best net rating of the main minute guys. It sort of had to be him, unless we give it to Conley (11 assists, 10 points) since this turned out to be his final Jazz outing.
• Jazz 118, Wolves 143: Collin Sexton. Not a lot of positives in this clunker outside of Sexton’s 22-5-5 night, a solid outing from Kessler, and 15 points and six assists from THT. Sexton tried to lift the energy with some drives and also hit a bunch of open threes.
• Jazz 120, Knicks 126: Talen Horton-Tucker. Markkanen had 29-5-3 plus three blocks, and his 17-point fourth quarter (!!) is the reason the Jazz were in this at all. Ultimately, though, THT’s 23 and 7 were a bigger story, and I tend to be a little less literal about “best player out there” criteria on losses than I do on Game Ball decisions. Clarkson had 24 (though not super efficiently), Rudy Gay had a nice nice in short minutes, and Kessler had 15 boards even though he barely shot the ball.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action

The All-Star break looms, but first the Jazz have to wrap up their current 4-game trip.

Monday 2/13, Jazz @ Pacers: The Pacers were a total mess while All-Star Tyrese Haliburton was sitting, but they’re also 1-5 since he’s been back in the lineup — albeit against a tougher-than-average opponent slate. Overall, they are 2-15 in the last five weeks and have plummeted to eight games below .500. Rookie scoring phenom Ben Mathurin has seemingly hit a rookie wall, averaging just 11 points in his last six games. Indiana is the worst defensive rebounding team in the league, which bodes well for Kessler — but he’ll also have to chase Myles Turner around.

Wednesday 2/15, Jazz @ Grizzlies: Not that long ago, the Grizz looked invincible at 31-13, but they have since lost nine of their last 12. The Grizz have five lineups with over 100 possessions played that are all double-digit positive, but Steven Adams is a fixture in all of them, and he’ll be out for a while with a knee injury. All lineups with the Kiwi center missing are +1.3, per Cleaning the Glass — essentially the net rating of a 45-win team. With him, they’re +10.4. Desmond Bane has been another bellwether for them: they’re 16-5 when he makes at least three triples.

**NBA All-Star Weekend** – Markkanen has been promoted to All-Star starter because of Zion Williamson’s injury, and he and Kessler will also represent the Jazz at other All-Star events.

Other stuff to watch for: Jazz owners Ryan Smith and Dwyane Wade will “captain” celebrity squads on Friday night (which basically means they’ll hang out), and former Jazz All-Star Deron Williams will coach a Rising Stars team. The G League Next Up game will feature former Utah collegiate standouts Eric Mika (BYU) and Neemias Queta (USU), current SLC Star and former Utah Mr. Basketball Frank Jackson, as well as brief Jazzman Saben Lee.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

A little fun Conley trivia before we leave you: his 1,228 Jazz assists rank 15th in club history, and his generosity has helped 34 different Utah teammates over the past four seasons.

• Gobert received the most Conley assists at 236 — which bodes well as the pair reunites in Minnesota.
• Clarkson (151) just inched past Bojan Bogdanovic (150) as the second biggest beneficiary of Conley’s assists. A much higher number of Clarkson’s buckets off of a Conley pass were threes — 128 to Bogey’s 99 — which means 430 of his points were created by Conley even before accounting for free throw assists.
• Donovan Mitchell received 102 Conley assists in their three years together, and 91 of those were for triples.
• Markkanen already cracked the top five of Conley assist recipients in a Jazz uniform after just a partial season, with 85 buckets converted after a pass from the veteran guard. That put him just past Royce O’Neale with 82.
• Joe Ingles (61), Georges Niang (46), Kelly Olynyk (42) and Beasley (39) round out the top 10.

We made it to the All-Star break! Two more games and then we get to catch our breath while Utah hosts the basketball universe for a few days.