The Utah Jazz entered the 2022 Summer League without any really big names. Sure, Johnny Juzang and Kofi Cockburn dominated the college level, but the expectations were not that high as they entered the Summer League and NBA.
The Utah Jazz have never won a Summer League championship (or any kind of championship), nor have they ever had a Summer League MVP. In the grand scheme of professional basketball, this doesn’t matter too much. A lot of the best summer players never pan out in the league. Jerryd Bayless, Randy Foye, and Glen Rice Jr all won Summer League MVP, but none of them ever had a spectacular NBA season, much less a career.
Summer league play is not very telling
The Jazz have had some dominant players in Summer Leagues past, but none of them ascended to win any sort of honors in the league (aside from one), so a lot of the July games have been forgettable.
Sure, Donovan Mitchell went off for 37 points in his summer debut in 2017, and Trey Lyles had some Hall-of-Fame level rebounding games, but overall most players had a somewhat forgettable summer experience, especially to fans who only follow the real season. Let’s face it, that’s most of us.
Even though it doesn’t pertain directly to NBA success, it’s fun to see which washed players and which superstars had excellent summers in a Utah uniform, and we have compiled the five best Summer League players in Utah Jazz history.
#5: Rudy Gobert
Rudy Gobert is one of the best players in Jazz history and one of only four players to ever win a Defensive Player of the Year award at least three times, but did you know he was also a Summer League legend?
Gobert is the only player in Utah Jazz history to win All-Summer League honors, being named to the second team in 2014.
2014 was his second summer stint, and the first one in 2013 was forgettable. No one watching knew the talent that he would eventually become, because in five games he only put up five points and six boards. He did, however, average 2.4 blocks that year.
In 2014 he really turned it around, doubling his scoring numbers, jumping up to nine rebounds, and he set a franchise record in Summer League block averages with 2.5 per game. That record still stands, and it was only a taste of what Gobert would eventually bring to the table.
While it was apparent early on that he would not be an elite scorer, his rebounding improved over his career. The All-Second Team mention is really what secures his place on this list, and if it weren’t for that his trophy case at home would practically be empty with only three DPOY awards in it.