Utah Jazz general manager Justin Zanik feels excited about the roster’s young players embracing different roles this season.
(via Utah Jazz):
“I think one thing that’s important to note this year is in the previous couple years we’ve had a big disparity of our young incoming players and rookies not being quite ready. For example, Brice [Sensabaugh] and Taylor [Hendricks] being injured in the summer, a little bit more of slower impact. We’ve had more veterans in the past, two years ago. I think what’s different this year is that we’re starting to build a really good depth base, they just happen to be really young. So instead of having three guys that are rookies, we have seven guys now under the age of 23. I think there’s going to be opportunities where it’s gonna look different. Now, we still have training camp. I can’t sit here and tell you who’s gonna play, who’s not gonna play, but our growth is gonna come from developing our talent base so that we can win more games now and in the future. That doesn’t happen overnight, but what’s important about development is playing. So you also know that in an 82 game season lots of stuff can change. There’s injuries, there’s stuff, and I’m actually happy that we have a deep roster, but I think there’s gonna be multiple opportunities for more young guys to play this year because we simply have more young guys as part of our rotation.
“So it’s gonna look different and I think it could look different from game-to-game depending on matchups and what’s going on. I’m super excited about this season, but it’s also another wrinkle of why you’re excited. You’re gonna see different players in different roles at different times, and how they respond isn’t gonna be some hot take of whether a guy can play or not play. All of these data points that we’re talking about of, ‘OK, where do they need to get better? Where do they need to focus? How did they learn that lesson?’ I’ll give you an example last year when Taylor Hendricks was playing at the end of the year: Will [Hardy] had him literally guarding the best perimeter player. I think he went on a three-game stretch from guarding Kevin Durant to Jimmy Butler to Devin Booker or whatever, that was huge for his growth going into the summer. I think those lessons that we’re able to impart and play while we’re still having internal competition where we’re gonna have multiple guys playing is huge for the entire group, and I’m excited to see how that plays out.”
