Why Emmanuel Mudiay, Utah Jazz are a match made in heaven
With the Utah Jazz adding five players from other NBA teams this offseason, perhaps the Emmanuel Mudiay signing has been overshadowed. Nevertheless, it could turn out to be as intriguing as any.
Through no fault of his own, Emmanuel Mudiay‘s career hasn’t lived up to his draft stock thus far. Coming into the NBA, Mudiay had played a meager 10 games of basketball in the year prior for the Southern Tigers in China.
After being selected 7th overall in the draft by the Denver Nuggets, he was thrust straight into the starting lineup to start 68 games in his rookie season. That’s right. For no reason at all, the Nuggets thought it was a good idea to take a 19-year-old who’s played 10 games of basketball post-high school, and play him 30 minutes a night in the NBA.
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And of course, unsurprisingly, Mudiay’s production as a rookie didn’t exactly live up to expectations. He was then dumped off to the New York Knicks; widely regarded as a team that have no ability to develop young talent, who tank the back end of seasons, and whose win total matches the amount of players that they sign and trade each year.
Despite being in one of the toughest situations in the NBA, Mudiay admirably made the most of his situation in New York. From the point Mudiay cracked the rotation as a Knick, he averaged 15.1 points on 45 percent from the field and 33 percent from three, with 3.9 assists, 3.4 rebounds and 2.4 turnovers.
If you could build an NBA point guard from the ground up, he’d look an awful lot like Emmanuel Mudiay. He stands 6-foot-5 with a 6-foot-8 wingspan, and he has a big, solid base that allows him to walk his defender to the rim. He might not be the explosive athlete that people once projected him to be, but he has tools that aren’t commonly found in a point guard.
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With the Jazz’s history of player development from Rudy Gobert who was once in the G-League, to Royce O’Neale who was undrafted and now an invaluable role player, to Georges Niang who has developed into a serviceable stretch four, it’s not unimaginable for Mudiay to take huge leaps under the guidance of the Jazz’s development staff.
In addition, if the Jazz’s success rate of poaching Denver’s draft picks is anything to go by, watching Mudiay emerge is going to be an intriguing sight. I, for one, can’t wait to see what Mudiay is capable of doing in a Jazz jersey next season.
Statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference.