There's no real good reason left to continue playing Jordan Clarkson

Jordan Clarkson helped elevate the Utah Jazz past the Washington Wizards on Monday with a 38-point outing. He shot 13-26 and a respectable 4-9 from three. He played in 36 total minutes, largely picking up the slack for an ill Keyonte George. It's fair to say that Clarkson led the Jazz to victory. Especially since the Jazz were without Lauri Markkanen on the day.

Clarkson looked good, at least offensively, and the Jazz needed every shot he could muster to win. So why exactly is he still playing? The Jazz aren't trying to win, number one. They made that very clear when they wholesaled their better defensive players for largely nothing. The goal is to get their Top 10-protected pick back for the 2024 NBA Draft.

Clarkson's heroics are going to negate that. Now, if the goal is to actually win, and the team is actually trying to, then people need to be fired. Today. That's not what's happening, however, and Clarkson is just keeping a bad team from being worse right now. He's not exactly helping the team in the grander sense.

Now, thankfully, we know that this isn't going to be a recurring thing, as Clarkson is wholly inconsistent. That inconsistency is also another reason why Clarkson should no longer be played. We know what he is. We know he's an average scorer, who can have an occasional game that we describe as "incredible", and he's a poor defender.

Playing him another 20 games isn't going to show the Jazz anything new. More importantly, it isn't going to show opposing teams who may want to trade for him anything new. Clarkson is a finished product and dare I say a depreciating one. The other 29 teams in the NBA aren't going to break the bank for Clarkson, no matter how he plays down the stretch. If he balls out, and the team still loses, all people will see is a guy who can turn it on when it dosn't matter.

Talk about empty stats, putting up your best games when the season is lost would be the emptiest of stats. The only thing that could happen that would affect his trade value is if he were to be injured. Which could absolutely happen.

If he gets hurt, then whatever value he has in a trade, which already isn't a lot, would fall even more so. It's time to tell Clarkson to pull up on the pine pony and ride out the season as a deep bench guy