When a team rebuilds, its primary focus is finding the next cornerstone and for understandable reasons. It's why the Utah Jazz are tanking for the second consecutive year. It's not clear yet if they have their cornerstone, but while they are still scrambling, they have their next sharpshooter lined up, and his name is Brice Sensabaugh.
Sensabaugh has established a name for himself over the past year. After an inconsequential rookie season, his vast improvement in his sophomore year was impressive enough for the Jazz not to ignore him after he proved himself to be a flamethrower. The Ringer's David Jacoby discussed the third-year Jazzman's hot shooting during preseason on "The Mismatch."
"I'm watching this game, and Brice Sensabaugh comes into the game, hits a three, hits another three. This dude hit six threes. Six for 10 from three to the point where the announcers are losing it. The announcers are just like, 'Is anyone going to cover this guy?' And then he starts taking heat checks, he misses a couple, but he's taking contested threes, tough threes," Jacoby said.
Jacoby said he wasn't sure if Sensabaugh would pan out, but he liked what he saw, to which Vernon said that the Jazzman made himself stand out during Summer League.
Jacoby said the quiet part out loud about Sensabaugh: he can let it fly from three, but more than that, he's not afraid to shoot the rock no matter what. That kind of confidence can play a hand in him becoming the sniper Utah needs when the team aims for the playoffs again in the future.
Could Sensabaugh be more than that?
It's notable that Sensabaugh is only now starting to garner the attention of national analysts, but earlier this year, his style was likened to Georges Niang. Honestly, that's not a bad comparison seeing that Niang has become one of the NBA's best sharpshooters.
But what if that's selling his potential a little too short? If the Jazz got another Niang-type with a late first-rounder, that's a home run, but Sensabaugh has shown some offensive finesse in his game as well. He can put the ball in the basket too. It might be a little greedy, but Sensabaugh's ceiling could be even higher if he shows that he can go iso on a few players.
There are players who have become dependable starters on playoff teams, even if they didn't necessarily become stars. The Jazz had a couple of them, including Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Ingles, and Jeff Hornacek, over the years. No, Sensabaugh's style is not entirely like theirs, but he can be in their league not too long from now.
It might be expecting a little too much for him to be a star, but it might not be too unrealistic to think he could be a difference maker on a title team.