The Utah Jazz have retired seven numbers. Besides them, who are the best Jazz players of all time? There are a lot of former players to choose from. Here’s who made it.
When the NBA season was suspended, I started brainstorming some ideas for articles and my first thoughts drifted towards making an all-time list, ranking the top players that have worn a Utah Jazz jersey.
However, I quickly realized that list has been written out numerous times already. I wanted to do something new. That’s when I thought of a similar idea with a slight twist: A list of the best Jazz players whose numbers aren’t enshrined inside Vivint Smart Home Arena.
When deciding who to add, my criteria was simple:
- No players with retired numbers allowed
- Only their Jazz tenure matters, not their entire career
Let’s begin.
5. Mehmet Okur
The moneyman.
In his seven years in Utah, Mehmet “Memo” Okur earned a reputation for hitting game-changing timely three point shots. The six-foot-eleven Turk had the ability to stretch the floor offensively, a trait truly before it’s time.
His best season was the 2006-07 campaign, where he averaged 17.6 points and shot a team-leading 4.2 threes a game. Thanks to a stretch of clutch performances and injuries to a few yearly shoo-ins, Okur was named an All-Star replacement reserve by late commissioner David Stern, playing for the West in 2007.
Memo’s unique skill set has him living all over Utah’s all-time lists. He ranks seventh in made field goals, eighth in three-point attempts and free throw makes, ninth in defensive rebounds, and tenth in total points and win shares (45.0).
4. Deron Williams
Fresh off a stellar junior year at Illinois that ended with a National Championship appearance, Deron Williams found himself picked third in the 2005 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz.
The Jazz were in limbo, after cornerstones John Stockton and Karl Malone left the team just a few seasons earlier. The current Utah team had All-Star forward Andrei Kirilenko, but fans knew that for the Jerry Sloan system to really work, the Jazz needed a star point guard. Luckily for them, Williams became that star.
Williams would quickly become a starter as a rookie and made the year-end NBA All-Rookie First Team. In his second year, Williams helped the Jazz beat the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors in the playoffs to reach the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 1998.
In his third year, he averaged 18.8 points and 10.5 assists a game, beginning a three-season long streak averaging a double-double. These would be Williams’ most effective years of his career, proven by his two All-NBA Second Team selections (2008, 2010) and two All-Star appearances (2010-2011) as a member of the Jazz.
Over his five and a half seasons with the team, Williams left his mark on Utah history. He sits at fourth all-time in assists, and ninth in field goal attempts, points, and win shares (46.7).
Unfortunately, a rift between Williams and head coach Jerry Sloan led to him being traded to the New Jersey Nets, ending his Jazz run early. Many fans were soured by the way Williams left, but, in recent years, Jazz fans and Deron Williams have mended their relationship.
Williams is one of the best ever to play in Utah.
3. Rudy Gobert
In the 2013 NBA Draft, the Denver Nuggets selected Rudy Gobert 27th overall and subsequently traded the Frenchman to the Utah Jazz.
Thanks, guys.
His special defensive abilities were visible very early on. In only his second year, he blocked at least two shots in 56 games, and since that year, Gobert has averaged more than two blocks a game every season. That’s six straight seasons. Only Gobert and Anthony Davis have such current streaks.
On offense, his seven-foot-one frame and seven-foot-nine wingspan make scoring at the rim rather easy. He has a career field goal percentage of 63.9 percent (which is second among active players) and led the league in field goal percent in the 2018-2019 season, making 66.9 of his shots. That same year, he set the NBA record for most dunks in a season, with 306. That’s 3.7 dunks a game, or a dunk every 8.4 minutes he played.
Judging from his natural abilities on defense and effectiveness on offense, it’s no surprise that In his seven years as a Jazzman, Gobert has racked up a number of league accolades. He’s been named an All-Star (2020), earned Third (2017) and Second (2019) All-NBA Team selections, received three straight All-Defensive First Team nods (2017-2019), and won consecutive Defensive Player of the Year awards (2018, 2019).
Along with his awards, Gobert is already rewriting the franchise’s record collection. He ranks third in offensive, defensive, and total rebounds; fifth in blocks; and fifth in win shares (62.9).
Rudy Gobert is only 27 and in his prime. There’s no telling how his already record-laden legacy will ultimately end. All I can say to Jazz fans is when you see Gobert play, please know you’re watching one the best Jazz players of all-time.
2. Thurl Bailey
Best known to younger fans for his TV duties on Jazz broadcasts, Thurl Bailey first wore the purple, green, and yellow before calling games. A college national champion, Bailey was drafted by the Jazz seventh overall in 1983. He would immediately start for the team and played well enough to earn All-Rookie First Team honors at the end of the year.
Just prior to his third season, Utah drafted a young star named Karl Malone, which bumped Bailey to the bench. However, the role change didn’t affect his growth, as he would continue to produce, eventually averaging 19.6 and 19.5 points a game in his fifth and sixth seasons, respectively, playing behind Malone.
Unfortunately, Bailey would be traded before Utah’s pair of Finals runs. He was dealt to Minnesota during the 1991-92 season.
Bailey would spend a couple seasons in Minnesota before playing professionally in Europe for four years. Bailey’s Jazz days weren’t over quite yet, however, as the big man returned to Salt Lake CIty for one final season in 1998, before retiring.
“Big T” played 10 years in a Jazz uniform and the record books prove it — he’s fifth in total games played, field goals made, field goal attempts, and total points — sixth in total minutes, defensive rebounds, and blocks — and eighth in total rebounds.
1. Andrei Kirilenko
Prior to the 2001-02 NBA year, the Utah Jazz were strung together by an aging Karl Malone and John Stockton. They were both moving further from their primes, proving that every great story has a climax and a falling action. It was clear the classics, no matter how good they once were, were falling out of style.
The Jazz needed new life—a new beat. Something fresh, something different. Who was going to be the band’s new first chair?
A young, lanky Russian would answer the trumpet’s clarion tune.
Andrei Kirilenko entered the league as the youngest European ever drafted, when Utah picked the 20-year-old with the 24th overall pick. By the end of his first year, he was a First Team All-Rookie selection. His stellar beginning season would be just the start.
Even early on, AK-47’s biggest impact came on the defensive side of the ball. He would eventually be named to three All-Defense teams (Second Team in 2004 and 2005; First Team in 2006) and was the league’s top shotblocker in 2005, averaging 3.3 a game.
Kirlenko’s ability to guard the other team’s top offensive threat while also being able to score, pass, and rebound efficiently himself led to an All-Star selection in 2004. He was the first non-Stockton-or-Malone Jazz All-Star since Mark Eaton’s appearance in the 1989 game. That year he averaged a career-high in points (16.5) and rebounds (8.1) per game, while adding 3.1 assists and 2.8 blocks.
As the bridge from one power-duo to another, Kirilenko continued to excel as Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer joined the team in 2005. Williams was a highly-rated rookie, and Boozer, an off-season signee, ran a Jerry Sloan offense similar to that of the mid-nineties, which meant Kirilenko wouldn’t be the focal point of Utah’s offense any longer. Kirilenko, however, continued to affect all aspects of the game.
In a game against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2006, Kirilenko had 14 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists, 6 steals, and 7 blocks. The performance was the NBA’s first ever regulation 5 x 6 stat line, meaning Kirilenko is the only player to ever record 6 or more points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks in a game that didn’t go to overtime. Forget about the Swiss–AK-47 was a Russian Army Knife.
Kirilenko would leave Utah after spending ten years with the franchise. After a lockout stint in Russia (where he would win the EuroLeague MVP), he returned to the NBA to play three years, split between Minnesota and the Brooklyn Nets. He now serves as the Russian Basketball Federation’s commissioner.
Kirlenko is all over Utah’s record books. He ranks second in blocks; fourth in win shares (68.2), made free throws, and steals; fifth in assists and minutes played; sixth in points; seventh in games played; eighth in attempted field goals; and ninth in total rebounds and made field goals.
(Whew–Let’s take a water break after all of that.)
Kirilenko’s last Jazz game was just months after Jerry Sloan’s. Looking back, the linked departures are sort of poetic, really–a partnered wave goodbye to what the Jazz were, and a joint-welcoming to what the Jazz were becoming. Kirlenko will always be a fan-favorite, and I don’t think it’ll be too long before he gets kicked off this list and has his name hanging in downtown Salt Lake.