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Utah Jazz 2014-2015 Player Review: Alec Burks

By Jared Barker

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Looking back on the Utah Jazz 2014-15 season that was. 22 players logged minutes, some stepped forward, others back. Some were called up from the ether, others packed bags for alternate destinations.

Alec Burks

At the beginning of the year many Jazz fans were eagerly anticipating Alec Burks Unleashed. Software version 7.0. Fans were richly rewarded in preseason. It was preseason but it was an amazing move against the most hated of foes.

Quite frankly Alec Burks inserted himself into the mix for the most intriguing story of the off-season along with with Rudy Gobert when he did this to Kobe Bryant:

That was so good I think we need to watch it again…

2014-15 Season Stats

33.3 MPG (27 games), 13.9 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 3.0 APG, 40% FGs, 38% 3FGs, ORtg 103.7, DRtg 111.1

Strengths

This year as a starter Alec got more media attention locally than he’s used to. Do we all remember when he was grabbing his head like crazy after performances like this?

Getting to the rack has always been a strength of Burks but against other teams starting lineups he struggled with it. Jazz fans know he hasn’t lost his ability to drive and with Burks playing hurt for the time he did play Jazz nation expects him to be able to return to form next year.

We are all witnesses to the advent of the Corner Pimp! 38.1% from three? Burks is a #CertifiedCornerPimp.

Weaknesses

A lot of things changed for Alec Burks this year as he started for all 27 of the games he played in this season.

As a starter his averages weren’t quite what they were last year coming in as a “[scoring ] punch off the bench”. Fans also didn’t get to see how well Burks was able to grow with the team as they transformed into a beastly defensive team after the All-Star break ultimately finishing the season on a very respectable 19-10 tear.  The truest weakness here is a 27 game sample size that came during one of the worst starts to a season the Utah Jazz have ever had.

Ben Dowsett had this to say of Burks early in the year. (Ben is a self-proclaimed huge Burks fan. He and I share a strong love for the Jazz version of Swaggy P)

"Perhaps most alarming, though, has been the play of recently-extended Alec Burks. For all the good Snyder’s system has done for the team as a whole, Burks seems to be having the largest struggles of anyone on the roster adapting to the motion-oriented scheme. His basic per-minute counting stats are down across the board, and his field-goal percentage (41.5) would be the lowest of his career thus far. – Ben Dowsett, Salt City Hoops"

Looking at the numbers what Ben says is undeniably true:

Thanks Basketball Reference!

Not long ago I was tweeting Ben about Burks and he mentioned his defense had also fallen off this year. It’s hard to know if this defensive malaise can be attributed to the teams struggles. If that is in part the issue much like with Hayward we should start seeing a more effective defensive version of Burks next year.

With Rodney Hood’s emergence we can speculate all day about Burks going back to the starting lineup or Rodney Hood replacing him there (don’t get me started Spencer…), but what really matters is how will he gel with the new starting line-up?

Only time will tell.

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