Utah Jazz: The skill that will earn Jared Butler minutes

Jared Butler could give the Utah Jazz what they needed more of last season.

Not only can Jared Butler play in the NBA, but the 21-year-old Utah Jazz rookie guard also may play his way into the regular rotation right away.

Besides, Butler was arguably the Jazz’s lone legit highlight from their lowlight of a preseason opener on Monday night. Across his mere 20 minutes of action in the 111-85 road loss to the San Antonio Spurs, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Louisiana native scored a team-high 16 points to go along with two assists, two steals, and only one turnover.

Now, it’s important to note that Butler probably wouldn’t have seen more than about 10 minutes or so had all of the veterans suited up for the Jazz; instead, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic, Rudy Gay, and Rudy Gobert all sat this one out.

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Still, Butler’s possible immediate insertion into the rotation would be impressive, considering he was a second-rounder and the fact Utah returns its top seven scorers from a 2020-21 team that finished with the league’s best record. To carve out a consistent role, the Baylor product, who led the national champs in scoring last season, must keep putting his specialty on full display.

Simple as that.

So what is the Utah Jazz newbie’s most apparent strength?

Well, perhaps the best way to put it — at least for scholars of late-20th-century pop culture — is that Jared Butler might be the one person who could beat George Costanza’s high score in Frogger. See, he seems to thrive in maneuvering through stop-and-go traffic at a calculated tempo, always exhibiting impeccable instincts when it comes to hopping quickly back and forth between lanes.

One brief example is the second of the following two Butler scores — the first being his booed yet safe finger-roll layup in transition — in this tweeted Jazz video from the Spurs game:

Sure, Butler may require several months to completely adjust to the NBA 3-point line, where he went 1-for-5 in San Antonio. And the upper-body power among the league’s elite guards might shock him a smidge.

But so long as head coach Quin Snyder continues to call his number often when the regular season begins on Oct. 20, Butler’s staggering shiftiness, smooth trigger, impressive vision, and advanced confidence should confuse defenses regularly. No doubt Utah has sufficient 3-point snipers to consistently drain all the open looks that the floor general’s gifted flow would create.

Last season, Utah Jazz flaws were few and far between. Nevertheless, some became obvious. They included the shortage of proficient drivers overall, the lack of a potent up-tempo point guard to operate the offense when neither Donovan Mitchell nor Mike Conley was on the floor, and the scarce perimeter defenders.

This season — and for years to come — Jared Butler alone might prove to be a massive part of the solution to all three of those Utah Jazz deficiencies.