Cody Williams showing signs of life is coming at significant cost for the Jazz

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a pulse on Cody Williams! Up until recently, the former Utah Jazz lottery pick showed little progress after an extremely disappointing rookie season. Well, for the past week or so, Williams has shown improvement, albeit in baby steps. While it's great to see Williams take a step forward, his encouraging play has come at the Jazz's expense, as they've played worse.

Look no further than their pretty embarrassing blowout at the hands of Golden State. Williams' statline is pretty encouraging for someone who has had literally nowhere to go but up this season: 15 points on five-for-nine shooting in 32 minutes, but also posting a minus-60 on the night.

Note: The Jazz lost by 55, meaning Williams somehow made them worse in every minute he played and then some.

At first glance, it's great to see Williams show something, and he has been doing that more and more over this latest stretch, but knowing that he's making them worse when he's on the floor ruins any excitement over what he could do. Plus/minus is a flimsy stat, but it seems telling that the next lowest plus/minus from that game belonged to Keyonte George at minus-38.

Per NBA.com, the Jazz are a minus-5.7 when Williams is on the floor on the season. Since they started consistently playing him on December 20, that dops even lower down to minus-18.4. To be fair, excluding last night, that stretch of game had him at a minus-4.7.

So yeah, it all takes only one game to make a player look bad, but even without last night, the Jazz don't play better when he's on the floor. They don't have to worry about this now, but this is concerning.

In a way, it works for the Jazz (for now)

So let's be honest. It's not like the Jazz playing worse when Williams is on the floor isn't going against their intentions. They want a high lottery pick and don't want it to go to Oklahoma City. So, this revealing statistic more or less does what Utah wants. It's better that Cody gets another lottery pick for a teammate than his brother Jalen.

More importantly, at least he's showing something when he's on the floor. Williams hasn't the lit the world on fire, but at least he's now aware he can use his long frame to help with his cutting. It's made for some electric plays.

And hey, playing okay while making your team worse is a step up from playing terribly while making your team worse. Especially if it's not really interfering with their immediate plans.