Utah Jazz editorial: Thank you very much, Trey Lyles!
By Ryan Aston
There’s seemingly no love lost between Trey Lyles and the Utah Jazz, but fans owe the former Jazzman a debt of gratitude.
It’s weird to think about given the fact that they’re currently sitting at home watching other teams play basketball, but the 2017-18 edition of the Utah Jazz was probably the best squad to come out of Salt Lake City in a decade. One could even make the argument that the Jazz were the third best team in the Western Conference.
You know what’s weirder? The fact that none of it would’ve happened without Trey Lyles.
Seriously.
Lyles is a lot of things to Jazz fans and most of them aren’t good. He’s the guy that was picked instead of Devin Booker, who’s now one of the NBA’s most electrifying scorers. Later, he became the 6-foot-10 stiff that couldn’t rebound, guard anybody or consistently hit shots. Finally, he was the guy that laughed when the Jazz lost Gordon Hayward, complained about Quin Snyder’s three-hour practices and remarked that Utah belonged on the list of the Association’s worst cities.
Last time I checked, Utah isn’t a city, but I digress. The point is that there’s a lot to dislike there if the Jazz band is your jam.
Regardless, the proud residents of Jazzland owe Mr. Lyles a major debt of gratitude. Because without his efforts, Donovan Mitchell wouldn’t have set foot in Utah. Not until he visited as a member of an opposing NBA team, anyway.
And without Mitchell, the Jazz’s 48-34 regular season, their first-round series win over the Oklahoma City Thunder and their exciting young core of players aren’t things that exist in the world.
Lyles made it all happen. Despite a dreadful sophomore season, he had shown enough — through his own efforts, as well as those of Utah’s developmental staff — to prompt the Nuggets to come calling on Draft Night 2017. The end result of that call was Nuggets GM Tim Connelly gifting a divisional foe their next franchise player.
They weren’t wrong to do so either. To them, Mitchell was either a late lottery pick that may or may not have panned out or a means to an end for deal-making. Lyles, meanwhile, had already shown playmaking ability at basketball’s highest level.
That ability was on full display this season in Denver, too. When Paul Millsap went down, Lyles stepped in and helped keep the Nuggets afloat. By year’s end, he was averaging 19 points and nine boards per 36 minutes and hitting 38 percent of his 3-point shots.
The Nuggets got exactly what they were looking for in the deal. It just so happens that the Jazz got a new lease on life in the process.
Now, Spidamania is runnin’ wild!
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So, the next time you feel the urge to pooh-pooh something Lyles says or does (which, based on his current track record, will probably be sooner rather than later), cut the guy some slack. Maybe even shoot him a thank you note instead.
The Jazz are living the dream and he’s the man responsible for making it happen.
Thank you very much, Trey Lyles!