Utah Jazz: Quick thoughts from preseason to prep for regular season

4 of 6

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – OCTOBER 5: Jae Crowder #99 of the Utah Jazz shoots the ball during a pre-season game against Adelaide 36ers on October 5, 2018 at vivint.SmartHome Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE via Getty Images) /

Jae Crowder shot selection

Via Jared Woodcox

Make no mistake about it, Jae Crowder makes the Utah Jazz a better basketball team. The mightiness of the Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles, Jae Crowder, Rudy Gobert lineup is evidence in and of itself of that. The versatility of that group and the ability to space the floor is invaluable.

However, there were high hopes that Crowder would benefit from a full training camp with the Jazz and an offseason to continue to learn Utah’s system. I’m certain that is true to some extent, but unfortunately, Crowder’s shot selection continued to be an issue during preseason, even though optimism was high that we’d see that get better once Jae had become more assimilated.

Instead, his decision-making continued to be spotty, and that led to less than stirring percentages. He shot just 41.2 percent from the field and a dismal 29.4 percent from deep. Some of those misses were just a result of luck of the draw preseason rust. Others were incredibly unwise takes on Crowder’s part.

I still think the addition of Crowder in place of the erratic Rodney Hood was an excellent trade for Utah. I still believe that Crowder can be a force as a sixth man and be an incredible benefit for Utah as a gritty defender and stretch-four option. However, his shot selection simply has to improve from what we saw last year and in this year’s preseason, no ‘if’s, and’s, or but’s’ about it.

Home/Jazz News