After a disappointing showing in the Utah Summer League, the Utah Jazz have a chance to redeem themselves as summer play continues in Las Vegas.
Despite going 0-3 in the Utah Jazz Summer League, the Jazz have a revitalized opportunity to prove themselves in Las Vegas as the NBA Summer League continues.
The Jazz begin action on July 9th at 4:30 pm MT against the Washington Wizards, followed by a game the following day against the Pelicans at 6:00 pm MT and then wrap up the preliminary round with a game against the Trail Blazers on Tuesday, July 12th at 2:30 pm MT. Their performance in these three games will determine their seeding in the ensuing tournament.
Of the opponents the Jazz will face in the preliminary round, perhaps the most noteworthy player will be the Pelicans’ Buddy Hield who was the sixth pick in the draft and played his college ball at Oklahoma. Hield struggled in his NBA Summer League debut, scoring 13 points on a sub-par 5 of 20 shooting from the field and just 1 of 8 from deep.
On the Utah Jazz’s side of things, the team will look to Trey Lyles to continue his standout performance from the Utah Summer League. Lyles averaged 20.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game to lead the Jazz, but unfortunately shot an inefficient 30.8 percent from the field.
Even though Lyles’ performance wasn’t enough to lead to Jazz to any victories, while the sample size is still small, it isn’t a stretch to say that the opponents that the Jazz faced in Utah were among some of the most talented summer league squads.
Therefore, if Lyles is able to shoot more efficiently and get more help from his teammates, the Jazz very well should be competitive against teams in Las Vegas. Two teammates in particular that will certainly need to step up are Tibor Pleiss and Joel Bolomboy.
Pleiss did log 14 points on 5 of 8 shooting in the Jazz’s final game against the Sixers, but he certainly showed he has areas that need improvement as well. He can shoot well, including from deep, for a player of his size, but his release is painfully, painfully, did I mention PAINFULLY slow, and it would be nice to see him more aggressive around the rim both in terms of scoring and rebounding.
Bolomboy has been a bit of a disappointment thus far for the Jazz and will likely need to have a much improved showing in the Las Vegas Summer League if he hopes to make Utah’s final roster. In 15 minutes per game, the power forward out of Weber State averaged just 3.7 points on 27.3 percent shooting and just 2.7 rebounds.
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Jazzmen Diante Christmas and Spencer Butterfield also put in decent contributions with Butterfield starting the second game and Christmas starting the third game. In three games played, Christmas averaged 11 points on 50 percent shooting while Butterfield averaged 8.5 points on 42.9 percent shooting in two games.
Yet, each of the aforementioned players will have to improve in order to help the Jazz finish with better results than they did in the Utah Summer League.
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While Lyles and Pleiss are currently both under contract for the Jazz, the rest of the Jazz’s summer league roster will be fighting for a spot on an NBA team. It isn’t very likely that the Jazz keep more than one, if any, of these non-contracted players on the roster, but with so much at stake expect them to bring their A-game as several of these guys will be playing for their lives.
And hopefully, that will make for some entertaining Jazz basketball.
All stats courtesy of NBA.com