Let’s talk about the Utah Jazz rotations and lineup decisions

MILWAUKEE — The Utah Jazz lost 123-100 to the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday night, but the negative fan reaction to the game was not about the incredible fastbreak-point disparity (39-9), the Jazz’s continuing turnover issues, or the fact that the Bucks used the Jazz as a way to get themselves back on track after a miserable start to the season.
Instead, fans on social media were up in arms about some of the team’s rotation decisions. The short version is fans were upset about Kyle Filipowski and Isaiah Collier only getting garbage time minutes.
But, I think to get a more accurate picture of what happened, we should go back a ways and look at what happened leading up to Thursday night.
Prior to Taylor Hendricks breaking his leg, Lauri Markkanen missing three games with back spasms and Jordan Clarkson missing a couple games with some nagging plantar fasciitis, Filipowski was not in the Jazz’s regular rotation, and prior to Thursday, Collier had not played a single minute of NBA basketball because he was nursing a hamstring strain.
As the Jazz were going through training camp and preseason, it seemed pretty clear that there could be some instances in which a couple of the young players were going to get some time in the G League so they could get some run while the Jazz focused some of the NBA development on other young players.
The injuries on the roster changed the plan quite a bit at the start of the season and gave some room for Filipowski to get some legitimate minutes at a point when he otherwise would not have.
On Thursday, Markkanen and Clarkson returned to the lineup. Markkanen’s return was going to push someone out of the rotation. Drew Eubanks got the minutes that many fans believed should have gone to Filipowski.
Collier was also cleared to make his NBA debut, and fans took exception to the fact that Patty Mills played 16 minutes and Collier was only brought in for the final four minutes of a blowout.
Frankly, I don’t think that anyone needs to explain Collier not playing. He didn’t have a great showing during preseason, there are some really big question marks about him as an NBA player and his first practice of the regular season with the Jazz was yesterday.
There will almost certainly be some opportunity for him later on, but on Thursday there’s no reason to believe he was entitled to any minutes, much less a big role.
Even so, I asked Jazz head coach Will Hardy what went into the rotation decisions after the game and this is what he said:
“We’re trying to put a bunch of different combinations together with the bigs to figure out what works best for all of them. Kyle’s handled himself great. There’s a lot of games to be played and Kyle’s gonna play a lot and he knows that. Obviously, Lauri coming back into the mix is a massive factor for Kyle based on his position. We’re trying to figure out how best to bring Lauri back into the fold and what types of positions we want to put Kyle in. Nothing’s ever set in stone as far as our lineups and rotations go. We also look at who we’re playing and what we think impacts that game.”
Hardy was then asked how he balances development with balancing rotations and all of the other factors that go into these decisions. I think what is important in how Hardy answered is his attention to what is happening behind closed doors and how all of the players on the team perceive those things.
There are practices and film sessions and workouts and shootarounds and extra runs that nobody from the outside gets to see, and in order to maintain credibility as a coaching staff as well as pushing the value of a competitive culture, there has to be accountability and a sense that things are earned, while also prioritizing development.
That means that this can’t just become a development camp where the youngest players on the team get the most minutes no matter what.
Honestly, we’ve seen what happens when NBA teams have given the keys to young players who aren’t being guided or at least held accountable by some older players, and those young players don’t always fare very well.
“I have the long view in mind for all of these guys,” Hardy said. “The reality is that we can’t play every young guy every night. That’s not how this is going to work….This notion of just getting minutes helps you get better is not true. Just playing for playing’s sake doesn’t just make you better. That’s why we have practices. That’s why we have the G League…we’re going to use all of our resources to help all these guys get better.
“I understand the sentiment of ‘Why did Kyle not play tonight? But we also have to maintain that this is a team and that we 18 guys that are in the locker room every night, and they see what happens at practice, and they see what happens in the games, and we have to maintain a standard of like, doing your job well means that you get to play some.”
Let’s imagine being a veteran on the roster. Imagine there have been a number of days in a row in which Clarkson, Eubanks, Mills and others have just been absolutely killing the rookies and other young players at practice.
Imagine the amount of time and commitment without complaint that so many of the veterans on this team have invested no matter the situation (like being on a team built to lose).
Still, George, Williams and Kessler are in the starting lineup and Filipowski got a chance based on some unfortunate injuries. At some point, Eubanks probably deserves a bone to be thrown his way and Clarkson deserves his time on the court.
But even if you, as a fan, still don’t believe that’s true, imagine being one of the veterans in that locker room and how meaningless all the hard work behind the scenes would feel if all seven of the Jazz’s youngest players were just gifted minutes every night.
Hardy has to make sure that he doesn’t have a locker room that implodes with anger and feelings of being jilted or feeling like trying doesn’t matter. That’s also not the lesson he wants the young players to learn.
“I think that if anybody is going to have an emotional reaction to who plays every single night, it’s going to be a really hard year,” Hardy said. “We have a lot of young players, and that means we have to think about the big picture of the team, the future, and each of these guys individually.
“I think just blankly saying like all seven of the young guys are going to play every night is not going to work…but I can promise you that my No. 1 focus every day, and my No. 1 focus for the remainder of the season is going to be developing all these young players.”
And Thursday was just the eighth game of the season, so let’s give this all some time.