The Utah Jazz caught a pretty bad break early on in the season when they lost Walker Kessler. It makes sense that they opted to have Jusuf Nurkic start in his place, as he's the closest they have to a traditional center archetype. However, because the Jazz have absolutely nothing to lose, now is the time for them to unleash Kyle Filipowski.
Filipowski hasn't been as good as the Jazz would have liked following a pretty exciting rookie season, but he has proven himself to be a threat even if the box score hasn't shown it. The trio of Kessler, Filipowski, and Lauri Markkanen was doing some damage earlier this season, and it turns out the two-man lineup of Filipowski and Markkanen has proven to be not just good, but dominant.
Again, his traditional stats don't show it, but that lineup data indicates that good things happen with Filipowski is on the court. 13 games into the season, he's averaging 7.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.3 assists while shooting 41.2% from the field and 31.4% from three.
Those are not the numbers we saw from Filipowski last season, demonstrating that the best may be yet to come from him. With Kessler out for the rest of the season, he should get the opportunity to not only match last season's numbers but also get better.
No, he's not Kessler and never will be as a player, but the Jazz can make some of the ground they have lost from Kessler's absence should Filipowski get better from here.
If Filipowski's traditional stats improve, his impact may be felt even more
Even if Filipowski isn't putting up the numbers he did last season, it's clear the Jazz play better when he's on the floor. It's because opponents know that he is the whole package when he's on the floor. His offensive finesse is too well-rounded for him to be ignored. The only problem is that he's simply not hitting his shots.
Between Lauri Markkanen playing at an All-NBA level and Keyonte George rounding himself into a star, that could open up the opportunity for Filipowski to further assert himself as other teams focus on them.
Even if his skillset is somewhat redundant when playing next to Markkanen, in this particular case, that's not a bad thing. Filipowski is a stretch big that can also move the ball around and score in the post (at least he was last year). Has his play left something to be desired to start this season? Yeah, but he still has plenty of time to make up for it.
Obviously him getting the opportunity to assert himself more shouldn't have come at the cost of Kessler's season-ending injury, but that's how the cookie crumbled and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Filipowski has been given some lemons, and now it's on him to make some lemonade.