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Utah Jazz PG Bryce Cotton Can Succeed Despite Size

By Ryan Aston

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According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah Jazz will likely enter preseason basketball without making any personnel changes at the point guard spot. This move (or lack thereof) comes despite the knee injury to starting point man Dante Exum.

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of this strategy is Bryce Cotton, the diminutive guard who was surprisingly effective in the final weeks of the 2014-15 season. Without the luxury of a guaranteed contract, Cotton was probably the fourth point in what figured to be a three-man rotation prior to the Exum injury.

Even still, there’s no guarantee that the former Providence standout can hang on with the Jazz long-term. Aside from being on the wrong end of a numbers game, Cotton has some things working against him. Chief among them is that lack of size.

Our own Spencer Wixom touched on this in a recent installment of his Jazz player rankings. At six-foot-one and 165 pounds, Cotton is at a competitive disadvantage on a nightly basis. While players are coming into the league with more size, strength and length than ever before, Cotton is hanging on for his NBA life as one of the smallest players in the Association.

Nonetheless, Cotton may just have the grit and the gumption to pull it off. Moreover, he wouldn’t be the first player to find success despite lacking traditional measurables. Historically speaking, size-challenged players have reached the highest levels of stardom in the NBA. Even now, there are multiple players bucking the big boy trend.

Houston Rockets legend Calvin Murphy had a Hall of Fame career at five-foot-nine and around 170 pounds. It was a very different era of NBA basketball, but his ability to play in 1002 games and score nearly 18,000 points at that height and weight remains a tale of overcoming the odds.

More recently, Allen Iverson cemented himself as one of the greatest ever to play the game at the Cotton-esque size of six-foot-nothing and 165 pounds. His speed, ceaseless tenacity and competitive drive made him an MVP-caliber player throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

While it would be foolhardy to expect Cotton to ascend to these heights, he does exhibit some of the drive and determination that helped Iverson and Murphy find success in the league. He may not have the skill to match their Hall of Fame exploits, but the Jazz guard could have the gusto to keep himself in the league for a very long time.

In the 90s, Michael Adams and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf were electrifying scorers despite their size. Shaquille O’Neal, who was a college teammate of Abdul-Rauf (then Chris Jackson) recently named the controversial guard the second-greatest athlete ever to come out of the state of Louisiana after “Pistol” Pete Maravich.

Even now, players like Nate Robinson, Isaiah Thomas, Aaron Brooks and Lou Williams are carving out careers for themselves as spark plugs and scoring threats off the bench. They aren’t traditional point guards, they don’t have nearly the size to play the two, but as change of pace players and energizers, they overcome their shortcomings to impact games.

It’s a small sample size and it came near the end of the season in games that largely didn’t matter, but Cotton exhibits the potential to have a similar impact. A glance at the per 36 minutes stats of these players during their rookie seasons paints an interesting portrait to that effect.

The Jazz guard compares more favorably to these players than one might expect–

Cotton undoubtedly faces an uphill battle, but it’s a path that has been forged before. Moreover, players that have an elite skill or physical talent have a better shot at breaking the mold. Dana Barros, for example, was able to play in the league for 14 years and even made an All-Star team thanks in large part to his ability to shoot the three.

While Cotton will probably never burn the nets in Barros-like fashion, he does possess incredible speed and elite leaping ability. Again, we’re talking about 15 games and limited data, but Cotton converted at a rate of 66.7 percent within three feet of the hoop thanks in large part to these attributes.

Of course, there’s always the chance that things go the other direction. The last time the Jazz brought in a player of such small stature was when they drafted Dee Brown in 2006. He played in only 68 NBA contests before taking his game overseas and has since retired.

There’s also the case of Tyus Edney, a generational-type college player that couldn’t hang on with the Sacramento Kings. He did, however, go on to become a legend in Europe.

As with Brown and Edney, Cotton’s road to success may also be one that travels through Europe. Still, his energy level, athleticism and demeanor could go a long way in keeping him in the league and even allowing him to thrive as a player.

So is he Spud Webb or Keith Jennings? Chucky Atkins or Greg Grant? Whether or not he can hang on with the Jazz remains to be seen, but the fact remains that his size and the limitations that come along with it aren’t necessarily the death sentence that some would have you believe.

History has shown it–Cotton can succeed in the NBA despite his size.

Next: Trey Burke, Rodney Hood Hit #NBARank

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