Fresh Report: Jazz’s ought to give credit and respect to Jordan for the records broken and imprinted for the team

Fresh Report: Jazz’s ought to give credit and respect to Jordan for the records broken and imprinted for the team.

For many Utah Jazz fans, the Jordan Clarkson experience has been a fun one. It’s not every day that a player with JC’s unique swag and flare embrace Utah the way he has. And his flame throwing play has created a lot of memories during a fun Jazz era that unfortunately came up short in the playoffs.

Also, credit where credit is due. JC finally broke one of the weirdest dry spells in sports by becoming the first Jazz player to get a triple double after a streak of 5,801 days. But it’s time.

Clarkson has been in trade rumors for 2+ years now and he’s well past his due date as a Jazzman. He’s a 31 year old 6th man on a team going through a youth movement. That would be fine if he was a great role model or mentor for the young guys on the roster.

He may be worth keeping around if he were helping put his teammates in a position to succeed. The price tag might be worth it if he could actually put the ball in the hoop with any sort of efficient regularity. But it’s just not happening.

Unfortunately, multiple times the Jazz have had probable opportunities to trade Clarkson at good value and multiple times he was kept on the roster. Now the Utah Jazz are stuck with a Jordan Clarkson problem.

I could somewhat understand the front office’s decision to bring Jordan back last offseason. They didn’t want to lose what they saw as a positive asset for nothing. Plus, they front loaded his contract, which goes from $23.5 million this year to $14 million for the next 2 years, which is under 10% of the league cap. And yet, with the way he’s played, it’s unlikely he’s a positive asset ever again.

• Among the 83 players with at least 12 FGA per game, Jordan Clarkson ranks 82nd in true shooting percentage
• Among the 94 players with at least 30 MPG, he ranks 86th in Defensive Rating
• Among the 134 players shooting at least 4.5 3’s per game, JC ranks 132nd at 29.5%
• Among the 135 players with at least 1,100 minutes played, Clarkson ranks 120th in LeBron. Most of the players worse than him are 25 years or younger.
• 52.2% of his shots are after 3+ dribbles (15.1% are after 7+ dribbles!). 50.4% of his shots are against tight or very tight defense. He touches the ball for 6+ seconds 23% of the time!
• Jordan Clarkson ranks in the 36.8th percentile as a pick and roll ball handler and the 25.8th percentile as a spot up shooter
• On defense, Jordan Clarkson ranks in the 39.1 percentile in isolation, 32.1 percentile in the pick and roll, and 11.3 percentile against a spot up shooted.No matter how you spin it, he’s just bad this year. And his on court attitude can be even worse at times. Like the team leading 36 minutes in last night’s loss to Orlando? A game where he scored just 5 points on 10 shots. His demeanor is of someone who is clearly done. That’s just one game you say? Ok well over the last 11 games he’s playing almost 32 minutes a night, shooting the ball nearly 13 times a game, and is shooting just 36% from the field and 28% from 3, oh and he’s an average of -5.2 per game over that span. It’s pretty hard to win games or develop young talent with heavy minutes going towards that kind of production.

So why is he still playing so many minutes? Honestly, I have no idea. But my best bet is preservation of summer trade value, where Tony Jones made it pretty clear this is in all likelihood Clarkson’s last year in a Jazz jersey. But what are we even preserving here? Didn’t we already learn this lesson when Talen Horton-Tucker was given the starting position in an effort to boost his trade value?

Clarkson needs a change of scenery and the Jazz need to prioritize development. There’s nothing wrong with that. If that means losing a little leverage in a few months, so be it. Let’s just rip the band aid off and be done with it.