Who are three of the better roleplayers the Utah Jazz have had this past decade?
It’s very easy to talk about the stars of the NBA. Your LeBron James’ and Nikola Jokic’s of the league are the type of guys that get plenty of headlines and column inches dedicated to them. Yet, what about the unsung heroes? The guys who have a role to do, and little else?
Well thanks to one Twitter account, Jazz Lead, we got to thinking about a topic they started on Twitter. They wanted their followers to name their favorite role players of all time and that was a solid idea. But we didn’t just want to name one of our favorite role players ever. We decided to list three of our favorite role players of just the last 10 seasons.
So instead, we’re doing a list of three. And to be clear, this list is purely subjective. You may have your own, and we hope you share yours with us on Facebook or Twitter. That said an honorable mention.
Name your favorite Utah Jazz role player of all time
— Jazz Lead (@JazzLead) July 25, 2023
I'll start, Kyle Korver pic.twitter.com/ngfoVBtTz1
Enes (Kanter) Freedom
Before we get into the top three, we have to take a second and look at what the former Enes Kanter, now Freedom, did for the Jazz. While he wasn’t able to live up to the hype of a high draft pick, the 2011 third-overall pick did have a solid NBA career. At least on offense. The defensively challenged Kanter/Freedom played four seasons for the Jazz, most of which he came off the bench for. He averaged nine points and five rebounds per game, and while he wasn’t great on defense, there exists a universe where he and Rudy Gobert became a duel tandem much like the Cavs have with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.
Imagine if Kanter/Freedom could carry the offensively challenged Gobert, and Gobert could carry Kanter/Freedom on defense. That’d be a wild, and possibly terrible (but maybe not) experiment we never got to see totally come to fruition.