Utah Jazz 2014-15 Player Review: Trey Burke

Mar 19, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Utah Jazz guard Trey Burke

(middle) passes the ball away from Los Angeles Lakers forward Ed Davis (21) and forward Carlos Boozer (5) during the game at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

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.

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Trey Burke

Coming off of a clutch rookie campaign in which he finished third in Rookie of the Year voting, hopes were high for the sophomore Jazz point guard who wasn’t even 22 years old yet. He’d won the Skills Challenge alongside Damian Lillard and led Utah in assist percentage while turning the ball over 131 times in 2,262 minutes — an astonishing figure for a rookie point in the NBA.

And then he was relegated to the bench after 41 starts in favor of the even younger lottery pick point guard from Australia, Dante Exum. Coach Quin Snyder said it was to give the second unit a scoring punch. In a way, it was a tale of two seasons for Trey Burke.

2014-15 Season Stats As Starter

32.4 MPG, 12.5 PPG on 12.9 FGAs, 2.7 RPG, 4.9 APG, 0.9 SPG, 36.8% FGs, 30.5% 3FGs, 103.6 ORtg, 108.7 DRtg

2014-15 Season Stats Off Bench

27.1 MPG, 13.2 PPG on 13.7 FGAs, 2.7 RPG, 3.5 APG, 0.8 SPG, 36.8% FGs, 33.2% 3FGs, 101.7 ORtg, 97.9 DRtg

Strengths

Instead of flying off the handle when moved out of the starting lineup, Trey Burke redoubled his efforts to improve on the things the team asked him to get better at.

"In the recent five-game tear of aggressiveness, Trey Burke’s offensive rating has been an exciting 107.5, but his defensive rating of 93.3 is eye-opening. He’s doing the things the Jazz coaching staff is asking of him to improve and be the kind of point guard Utah needs to get ahead in the bloody West.–The J Notes, April 4, 2015, While You Weren’t Looking Trey Burke Changed His Game"

Burke never complained about his role on the team changing, rather taking the demotion in stride, viewing it as an opportunity to regain the chip on his shoulder and get better at basketball. For a guy whose season began with Tallywhacker Gate, Trey Burke was an utter pro afterward when many other athletes would have sulked and stopped trying.

Working with coaching staff extensively, Burke also added a nice floater in the lane to his game that he scored quite a few buckets off of as he perfected the timing.

Weaknesses

As the tale of two statistical seasons shows, Trey Burke got more aggressive as a scorer off of the bench — and to be fair, that’s what he was told to do by Quin Snyder, who is as likely to yell at a player for passing up an open shot as he is to have great hair when he rolls out of bed.

It didn’t translate into more efficient scoring by much, however, rather turning Burke into a gunner from no-man’s land for the first few weeks after the move.

Criticized for not getting to the free throw line enough since last season, the habit carried through for most of this as well, although Burke did show signs of pushing into the paint more in the waning weeks.

Oh, and that jump-pass thing has to end, Trey.

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Trey Burke believes in himself, but not in a cocky way that annoys fans. And he’s willing to put in the work for the franchise to make everyone better, knowing that if he trusts his teammates and coaching staff success will follow. He shows good awareness and knows what he did and didn’t do well last year, so expect less gunner Trey Burke in 2015-16.

And yes, the elephant in the room to start the season was banished to a degree by the end of it: Trey Burke and Dante Exum can indeed coexist on the court.