Salt City Seven: Starter Switch, Zanik on Assets & More

Collier has worked his way into the starting lineup. (Brandon Dill, 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 exploration of a big-picture topic

One of the most interesting things to happen in Jazzland this week happened just outside of the 96 minutes of actual basketball that were played since our last SC7 installment. Losses at OKC and Memphis were not huge surprises, so perhaps the biggest moment worth dissection happened just before Jazz-Grizzlies: when we learned that Isaiah Collier would start in place of a healthy Keyonte George.

George was one of four players who had started every game he played for the Jazz this season. That streak ended on Saturday, but it’s easy to frame his side of this move as an experiment rather than a demotion. In a game with no Jordan Clarkson, the Jazz probably wanted to see how George would do in that role of off-the-bench possession eater. There’s at least some chance that his role on a contender is going to be something akin to the Clarkson role anyway, so giving him a chance to come in and focus on scoring instead of trying to run the first unit might have been a little freeing for the second-year guard.

In fact, he claimed the starting spot last February immediately after a 7-game stretch of 50-38-89 shooting with 23% usage off the bench. In some ways, that role makes more sense for him than trying to square-peg him into being an offensive organizer for the starting group. In this particular game, assuming the Clarkson role in the second unit didn’t exactly unleash George as a scorer’s scorer — he shot just 3-for-15 — but I understand why they might try it again.

On Collier’s side of the equation, this was clearly both a reward for a nice run of playmaking and a chance to see if having a more natural ball mover could help starting groups congeal in a different way.

In particular, it’s worth seeing if a real facilitator could unlock something different for Lauri Markkanen, who was an All-Star in the one season he played with a true table-setting type of point guard in Mike Conley Jr. Alas, Markkanen struggled in this one, too, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t keep trying to see what different combinations could yield, especially as it relates to Markkanen’s comfort level as a building block. Collier-Markkanen hasn’t really been a winning tandem yet, but the rookie guard does have a real knack for creation that’s in pretty light supply elsewhere on this roster.

There are different levels of offensive decision-making in guards. At the basic level, NBA ball handlers need to be able to make simple A-or-B reads. Coaches try to set up plays in a way that they’ll present that type of an easy choice to young ball handlers: Run this action, go to this spot, and chances are good the defense will either do this thing or that thing, and you react accordingly. That’s kind of the starting point.

When guards get really good at those reads, some reach a point where instead of reacting to the defensive shifts, they can anticipate them, even thinking ahead to the second and third helps.

But there’s another level that’s reserved for elite facilitators, who don’t just react to or anticipate the defense — they manipulate it. They understand those situations where if they hold the ball for an extra half second or change their driving route by 20 degrees, they can almost force the defense to behave a certain way. They dupe guys into over-helping, or freeze a last-line defender for the fraction of a second they need to open something else up.

There are times Collier looks like he might have the beginnings of that type of ability. There was a play against Memphis, for example, where he caught the ball open on the perimeter but clearly had no intention to shoot it. So instead, he drove the ball right into a gap between two defender, practically forcing a two-time All-Defense guy to leave Drew Eubanks open for a dunk. On another, he went away from the screen and drove straight at the corner help guy so he couldn’t even think about getting back to a corner shooter.

And on maybe my favorite Jazz play of that game, he sees a quick outlet coming but runs the floor wide, so that the first defender back has to follow him down the right sideline, leaving a path completely open to the basket for the second cutter, Collin Sexton.

It’s not normal for rookie guards to have that kind of spatial awareness at NBA speed right away.

Of course, as I’ve said all along with Collier, there’s some minimum threshold of shooting he needs to hit for any of this to matter in terms of how he could help a contender. Luckily, he’s made eight of his last 21 threes (38%), but this is also just about making teams feel like you might occasionally dare to shoot the basketball. A modern guard just needs to shoot way better than .413 true shooting to stay on the court for a good/great team, although it’s pretty common for guards especially to turn in pretty awful shooting years as rookies.

Whether they keep their current roles or go back to George starting and Collier running the second unit, it’s at the very least an interesting experiment. With Utah midway through a season that’s mostly an intellectual exercise, “interesting” counts for something.

Telling or interesting words from Jazz people

“The way it makes sense for us is that we now have another shot at a pick that has a lot of variability, of course, but the three picks we traded have no chance to be the No. 1 pick. And this one does… 

We’ve always talked about bites at the apple or more swings in the draft, but it is also about the quality of the swings, and this is, in my opinion, the most valuable asset on the market right now.”

-Jazz GM Justin Zanik, during an appearance on the team broadcast.

Mark Pereira already did a great extended breakdown of this trade in podcast form. The Jazz essentially traded three of the lowest-value picks in their asset cache in exchange for an unprotected pick from the Suns in 2031. Basically, they took advantage of Phoenix’s desperation to turn three “meh” assets for one asset with really high upside. Kevin Durant will be 42 when that pick conveys. Jimmy Butler, if that’s who the Suns target with their newfound pick-trading freedom, will be 41.

Some fans were docking Zanik some sincerity points because they interpreted this quote as though he was saying that was the best asset in the league. That certainly wouldn’t be if that were what he said. Washington’s 2025 pick is a more valuable asset. Victor Wembanyama is a more valuable asset. For starters.

But that’s not what Zanik said. He said it’s the best asset on the market right now. And he might be right. The Wizards aren’t trading their pick, and Wembanyama isn’t going anywhere. Neither are the top 10 or 20 stars in the league. In terms of what picks and players were/are actually the subject of phone conversations over the past week and the week to come, it’s not crazy to think that the Phoenix pick is right up there. There’s no telling if it will yield a top selection in 2031 or if the Suns will have remade their roster to be circling back to relevance by then, but as long as there is doubt there, that will be one of the better picks in Utah’s impressive collection.

Before this trade, Utah owned 11 likely firsts between 2025 and 2029, a number that would have been nearly to impossible to roster had they kept them. So they dumped the three least valuable of those 11 to balance out their stash over the next seven drafts instead of having more fun than they could handle over the next five. The worst that could happen is that two of the outgoing picks wind up being at least semi-decent (this year’s is already a mortal lock to be #29 or 30) and then that Phoenix is really good again by 2031. That could happen. But given the upside, it’s worth the gamble, especially since the Jazz literally had more picks than they could really use, and it’s not like the #30 pick was going to yield a crazy return by itself.

This will be a chip that will get discussed in a ton of phone conversations in the next 77 months.

Stats that tell the story of the week

11-0

Utah kept it close in OKC despite a stellar night from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who finished with 54. The game was tied at 106 with under six minutes to go until the Thunder uncorked an 11-0 run, and the Jazz never recovered. Still, impressive that they hung in that long with the West’s best, despite…

39+

The worst four games in turnover points allowed this NBA season all belong to the Jazz. Nobody else has let an opponent score 39 such points, but the Jazz have done it four times: against OKC in December (45), in Detroit (40) and Denver (39), and again on Wednesday night.

0/23

Until the final 90 seconds of Jazz-Grizz, Markkanen, Sexton and George had combined to miss all 23 of their outside shots in just a bizarre shooting night. Markkanen and Sexton did finally make one apiece in the waning moments, but Utah generated a ton of good looks for their best shooters, and still had their 10th shooting night of 30% or below on threes. Not surprisingly, they’re 0-10 in those games.

35.6%

This writer remains not the least bit worried about Markkanen in overall terms, but the sudden shooting slump is officially entering “weird” territory. After his 1-for-8 night on Saturday, he’s now officially under the league average for 3-point percentage on the season, and he’s made just 13 of his last 45 long-range attempts (28.9%).

16.8%

Walker Kessler remains the NBA’s best offensive rebounder, grabbing one in six available rebounds on that end. He’s also the top field goal shooter at 73.3%.

Dissecting a Jazz scoring play from the week

We’ve talked a lot here about how much the Jazz like to “ghost” screens. Lately I’ve noticed a ton of instances where the Jazz are setting a double-screening action and one or both screens really isn’t given, oftentimes throwing defenses into chaos. Now three defenders have to be on the same page about what set of switching/helping/showing rules are triggered if the first screen is there but the second is a fake screen, or vice versa.

Here are a couple of examples from Bricktown.

On the first one, Lauri looks like a screener but in reality I’m not sure he even breathes on George’s defender. But then Kessler sets a great pick that gives George decent separation. The big man defending is already in drop, but now has to come way outside because George got the step on SGA. That leaves Kessler pretty open on the catch. I’m not sure why three defenders rush to wall off the paint for Kessler when he catches 16 feet away, but they do, and that leaves the baseline wide open for John Collins, who starts to cut as soon as he sees his defender sneaking too far to the middle.

The second one is a total farce, because neither guy involve in this screening action comes anywhere close to setting what reasonable people would call a real screen. Actually, this functionally winds up working like Spain P&R, just with no true picks set. And it has its desired effect because the Thunder aren’t on the same page about scheme here as a result of the almost-picks. Kenrich Williams signals for a switch even though his teammate is a good six feet behind Walker Kessler. Collier just sort of jogs his man out of the picture, and the corner helpers forget to decide who comes in to help, probably because this all happens so fast and without the usual amount of bumping and grinding.

But seriously the Jazz fake screens a ton — both on and off the ball. The opening basket against Memphis came when Markkanen’s defender started cheating over a Collier pindown screen that was never set, so the Finn simply darted backdoor for a dunk.

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

We lumped Monday’s game into last week’s Salt City Seven, so we have only two games to dole out credit for in this edition:

Strong in defeat:

• Jazz 114, Thunder 123: John Collins. This probably has to go to Collins, who returned from an 8-game absence to drop nine points in 5.5 minutes on his way to a 22-and-12 line with team-best +12. But Kessler was pretty tremendous with 17 and 15 (9 of his boards were offensive), and George had his first double-double in nearly three months. Sexton’s eight TOs move him down the candidate list, but otherwise he had 18-4-9.
• Jazz 103, Grizzlies 125: Collin Sexton. This one also gets sorted out somewhat by default. Markkanen struggled, Kessler battled with Zach Edey, the point guards shot poorly as they switched roles, nobody from the bench super duper had it. So this pretty much comes down to Sexton (20-3-4) and Svi Mykhailiuk (16, four threes). I’ll go Sexton because he did more of his damage (13 of his 20, all nine of his free throws) in the first half when the game was still competitive. He had a rough shooting night, but got to the line enough to save a decent stat line.

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of action

The Jazz play 14 of their next 18 at home, but the opponent slate is no joke.

• Monday, January 27: Jazz vs. Bucks. The Bucks had won eight of nine before a Saturday misstep in LAC. They’ve fought their way back up into a homecourt spot, but it’s required a lot from their two big stars. Giannis Antetokounmpo is averaging 31-12-6, while Damian Lillard is adding 25 a night and having one of his three best rim finishing seasons at the ripe age of 34. They’re a fourth seed nobody would want to see in a second-round playoff series, but it feels like they’ll a prime candidate to go hunting for an upgrade behind their stars.
• Tuesday, January 28: Jazz @ Warriors. The Dubs have fallen back below .500 for the year after a 4-7 stretch, and now face the existential question of how much to go “all in” to extend the competitive window of their franchise legend when there’s close to zero chance they actually make any serious amount of postseason noise. That said, Draymond Green’s reevaluation date (calf injury) is the day of Jazz-Warriors, and Andrew Wiggins is average 20 over his last seven games.
• Thursday, January 30: Jazz vs. Wolves. Minny is coming off arguably its biggest win of the year, a 29-point drubbing of the healthy Nuggets. That said, they get the Jazz on the second night of a back-to-back and the tail end of a 4-in-6. This team brings four former Jazzmen with it, although Joe Ingles rarely plays. Mike Conley Jr. is back to starting, Nickeil Alexander-Walker is having a career year from three, and Rudy Gobert is once again holding opponets to the low 50s in rim percentage. Minnesota’s success also determines whether Utah gets a second lottery pick — something B-Ref estimates is only 13% likely.
• Saturday, February 1: Jazz vs. Magic. Orlando just snapped a 5-game skid, but overall it’s not an exaggeration to say this is a completely different team than the one Utah defeated soundly on January 5. Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs are all back from injuries, but this team is just trying to find enough offense to let their pesky defense win them games. From Christmas through last Thursday, they had a streak of 15 straight games with 106 points or less. That’s more than double the second-longest streak this season, though they finally ended it with a 121-point night against Detroit.

Random stuff from the Jazz community

The shot of Cody Williams’ family in jerseys that were half Jazz #5 and half Thunder #8 (in honor of the Jazz rookie and his elder brother, Jalen) was too adorable not to end there.

In fact, here’s a little graphic I had all ready to go for when the Williams brothers finally had their first head-to-head experience. Alas, it didn’t happen because of an ankle turn in New Orleans, but we can still check out the NBA’s version of sibling rivalry this year.

Source: B-Ref

The Williams brothers are one of 14 active pairs of siblings in the NBA this season, although like five of the other duos they have not yet competed directly against each other on the court yet.

Watch for some more trade deadline stuff coming soon…