Why does Will Hardy keep letting Jordan Clarkson shoot like he’s Steph Curry when he plays defense like, well, Jordan Clarkson?
Jordan Clarkson has become a problem for the Utah Jazz. Across the season, the Jazz have seen the former sixth-man of the year struggle to hit his shots. On Wednesday against the Indiana Pacers, he arguably had his best game shooting. He hit 46% of his shots, a nice improvement from his yearly average, and he also was able to tally 33 points on the night.
Normally that would be good enough to quell any conversation about his viability to positively impact the team. That’s not the case, however, because while Clarkson did shoot the ball well, he did everything else a pro basketball player needs to do poorly. He was awful on defense, he constantly committed turnovers and he had several poorly timed fouls.
If Clarkson was just a sixth-man, or even rotation guy off the bench, you take it, because those guys are only usually on the team because they excel at just one thing. But Clarkson isn’t just a bench guy getting minutes in a rotation; he’s supposedly the second-best player on the team.
Though with the way Clarkso hogs the ball, limiting star player Lauri Markkanen’s shot attempts, it’s clear he’s playing like he thinks he’s the star of the team. Utah Jazz head coach Will Hardy has Clarkson running the offense a good chunk of times and it’s been a disaster. For some reason, Hardy not only trusts Clarkson to be the point man of the offense but to take more shots than Markkanen.
Despite the fact that Markkanen has historically been a better shooter. If Markkanen is the face of this team, then he should get shots like he is. Giving Clarkson 26 shots is a problem. Especially since he took only three from behind the arc.
It’s no wonder the Indiana Pacers outpaced (no pun intended) the Jazz last night. They shot 41 threes last night, while the Jazz collective shot 27. It’s easy to outscore a team when you know they’re not going to shoot three-pointers to keep pace.
The Jazz ended the third quarter trailing by three, 101-98. In the fourth, the Pacers took 10 shots from three, while the Jazz took just four. The Jazz took about 23 shots in the quarter, with Clarkson taking five of those, going 1-5 from the floor.
Not so shockingly, Clarkson took more shots in the fourth than anyone. Even more than Markkanen, who was the only person who was able to hit from three in the quarter. You’d think with a scorer like Markkanen, who’s shooting 48% from the floor and 45.5% from three, that he’d get more attempts.
Especially since he went 50% from the floor and 60% from three. But nope. Instead, the Jazz continue to allow the selfish antics of Clarkson to hold the Jazz back. A layman may think it’s impressive to score 33 points in a game, but anyone who knows how the modern NBA works knows you can’t win games with guys taking 20+ shots, all from inside the arc.
If you’re not able to score from three, you aren’t going to be able to keep pace with most teams in the league. Clarkson is good enough for 10-15 minutes a game still, as he can score in bunches, but he can’t do anything else, and this is not a league where you can win with a starter or faux star, doing just one thing.
The fact that the Jazz are allowing Clarkson to be the man when he has no right to be, should show us all that this is a systemically terrible offense, made worse by players who shoot first and pass third.
While turning over the ball second.