Although the Utah Jazz are one of 11 NBA teams to never hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy, they’ve frequently assembled competitive rosters with a real chance at accomplishing that feat. As such, they’ve hosted a multitude of talented players throughout their organizational history. Some of those players are widely known among even casual NBA fans. That’s to be expected when you’re the NBA’s second all-time leading scorer, or all-time leader in assists and steals. However, some great players have passed through Salt Lake City throughout NBA history without reaching as lofty heights as Karl Malone or John Stockton.
Such is life in a small market with no NBA championships. A lot of great players pass through the NBA. To acquire a lasting, unimpeachable legacy, you need to reach levels of greatness that are beyond reproach.
Or, you just need a J-Notes writer to dig through the annals of Basketball Reference to drudge up stats from your long-past NBA career.
Either way, here are five of the most underrated players in Utah Jazz history.
Throughout most of the 1990s, the Utah Jazz were synonymous with the all-time great duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone. While the pair was busy reinventing one of the most fundamental plays in basketball in the pick-and-roll, they were consistently flanked by a lesser regarded, but still highly impactful wing named Bryon Russell.
Russell was effectively an archetype for the modern 3-and-D wing. In 2000-01, he shot a blistering 41.3% from three-point range. Under Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder, he’d undoubtedly shoot a higher volume than the 2.9 attempts per game he was afforded then. Still, his omnipresent threat to knock down the triple surely provided spacing for Stockton and Malone to perfect their devastating two-man game.
Russell didn’t pour in the points, as he averaged a career high 14.1 points per game in 1999-00. With teammate Karl Malone in the midst of the second greatest scoring career in NBA history, he didn’t exactly need to. Russell’s calling card, above all else, was his defense.
His career Defensive Rating of 103 alone belies a historically great defender, but his 1998-99 high water mark of 99 is truly mind-melting. In fact, if not for the lockout that held the NBA season to 50 games that season, that mark would put Russell’s individual season among the top 25 of all time, among esteemed names like Patrick Ewing, Kevin Garnett and Yao Ming.
Sadly, Bryon Russell’s most lasting legacy may be as the defender on a certain historic shot by a certain NBA GOAT candidate. However, it’s worth remembering why he was assigned to cover that shot in the first place.
Much of what was said about Byron Russell applies to Matt Harpring. He served the Utah Jazz from 2002-03 to 2008-09 as a gritty, defensive minded, floor-spacing wing. In many ways, Russell passed a torch to Harpring. Still, there were essential differences between the two.
Those differences may start with Harpring’s career high 17.6 points per game over the 2002-03 season. Furthermore, while it’s worth acknowledging that both were stalwart defenders, Harpring never did turn in an elite sub-100 Defensive Rating for the Utah Jazz (although it is worth noting that he accomplished that feat for the Orlando Magic in 1999-00, posting an incredible 98 mark).
Harpring’s three-point accuracy was wildly inconsistent throughout his tenure in Salt Lake City: for example, he hit 41.3% of his triples over his 2002-03 Jazz debut, followed by an abysmal 24.2% the following year. As we’ve established, three point shooting was a lesser priority in Harpring’s heyday, and his combination of high-IQ offense, dogged defense and strong rebounding (he averaged a career high 8.0 per game throughout the 2002-03 season) endeared him to both fans and coaches alike.
Younger Utah Jazz fans may know Harpring as a wise-cracking color commentator they’ve either grown to love or hate. They should also know that he’s more-than-qualified for that job.
One may think that any man referred to as “Dr. Dunkenstein” would be widely remembered no matter what their career accomplishments. Particularly if that player claims four seasons averaging at least 20 points per game. In the case of Darrell Griffith, one would be wrong.
Griffith played for a Utah Jazz team that was fresh off a move from New Orleans and struggling to find their footing in the NBA. Put differently: they did not win very many games throughout Griffith’s 10-year career spent entirely with the Jazz. Just don’t blame the doctor.
From 1980-81 to 1984-85, Griffith averaged under 20 points per game once, scoring 19.8 per contest in his sophomore 1981-82 season. His mark of 22.6 in 1984-85 would be a career high. Griffith poured in such a high volume of points with an elite blend of ball handling and athleticism, allowing him to get to the basket with ease and deliver (you guessed it) electrifying dunks on a nightly basis.
Griffith paired up with several more famous Jazzmen throughout his career, including Pete Maravich, Adrian Dantley and Bernard King. For whatever reason, such an accumulation of talent never resulted in the win totals that the Utah Jazz front office would have hoped. Nonetheless, Griffith deserves to be remembered as a staple of a bygone era of Jazz basketball.
As previously mentioned, he played his entire 10-year career in Salt Lake City. That kind of franchise-loyalty is increasingly rare in today’s NBA, and deserving of fond recollection in its own right.
The late, great Mark Eaton is probably the most recognized name on this list. As a general rule, it’s difficult to forget any man who stands 7’4 and weighs 274 pounds. Nonetheless, he accomplished enough both on and off the court that he deserves more recognition than he currently receives.
We’ll start with Eaton’s tremendous on-court impact. You might want to sit down before you read this stat:
Mark Eaton blocked 5.6 shots per game for the Utah Jazz over the 1984-85 season.
That’s the most in NBA history for a single season. All told, Eaton sits fourth on the NBA’s all-time block leader list with 3,064 total career blocks. That puts him one spot ahead of Tim Duncan, who played 19 seasons in the National Basketball Association. Mark Eaton played 10.
He truly has a case as the most effective shot blocker in NBA history. Those weren’t empty stats either: remember the sub-100 Defensive Rating benchmark we’ve discussed throughout this article? Eaton hit that mark 3 times throughout his career. In fact, his career Defensive Rating stands at precisely 100. That’s good for 47th in NBA history, just three spots below current Utah Jazz player and 3x Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert.
Eaton tragically passed away on May 28, 2021 in a bicycle accident. He was a valued member of the Utah community as much as he was a valued member of the Utah Jazz throughout the 80s into the early 90s.
A gentle giant who succeeded wherever he went, Mark Eaton left a sizeable legacy: he just deserves an even larger one.
Full disclosure: we’re cheating a little bit here. Truck Robinson never played a single season for the Utah Jazz. In fact, he only played two seasons for the New Orleans Jazz, in 1977-78 and 1978-79.
Nonetheless, the years the Jazz spent in the Big Easy qualify as part of their franchise history. More importantly: holy cow, was this guy underrated.
Thought experiment: you receive a visitor from the near future, and he tells you that throughout the 2021-22 NBA season, one player will average 24.2 points and 13.4 rebounds per game. Who do you anticipate that player will be? Realistically, it has to be Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, or Karl Anthony-Towns, right?
Well, those were Truck Robinson’s averages as a member of the New Orleans Jazz in 1978-79. His averages of 22.7 points and an astonishing 15.7 rebounds per game from the season prior are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Robinson isn’t beloved among Utah Jazz faithful, and for good reason: he only spent two seasons with the franchise, and they played in a whole different area code while he did. Regardless, he isn’t just underrated among Jazz fans. He’s underrated altogether.
Inevitably, highly-talented players will enter and exit the NBA, and eventually become lost to history. Time has never lost a battle to memory. Nonetheless, these five NBA players deserve more recognition for their contributions to the Utah Jazz franchise.