When the Jazz PR team sent out a text on Monday morning asking some of the reporters who cover the team who they wanted to speak with following shootaround, I made the unusual move of requesting Nigel Williams-Goss.
It was a little more prophetic than I’d intended it to be, as the Jazz cut NWG on Tuesday evening.
The transaction itself was not really surprising: excising his non-guaranteed contract from the budget saved the team a few million dollars off a potential luxury tax payment, and he was a 26-year-old who never really displayed the skill or promise the front office envisioned when they drafted him, or when they brought him back following two years in Europe — as evidenced by the fact that he could not even beat out the mercurial Emmanuel Mudiay for playing time.
Still, knowing now what would happen a day later makes the enthusiasm and earnestness he displayed in his final interview all the more sad.
“Yeah, I think going into Year 2, I feel a lot more comfortable than I did last year,” Nigel said. “… I’ve always prided myself on just the hard work and preparation, whether that’s watching film, being the first one in the gym and the last one to leave, just whatever it takes for me to maximize my skill set and the things that I can bring to this team. I have a lot of confidence in my ability, and whatever the team needs me to do, I feel like I’m always going to do.”
Point guards don’t matter anymore
I bring this up because, with NWG’s release, some Jazz fans have reached out on social media, wondering how it is that Mike Conley can be the only point guard on the roster now. I imagine some faces darkening and neck veins bulging as questions such as, “What are they gonna do if Conley gets hurt?!” are rage-typed into the dark corners of Al Gore’s internet.
Old-school terms like “shooting guard” and “small forward” are simply too binary. The 1-5 positional designations are somewhat irrelevant, too. Even nominal catch-alls like “guard, wing, big” are a bit limiting. Sure, “positionless basketball” is now something of a mindless cliché, but the point it illustrates is that so long as specific tasks get done on the court, there’s no point putting a label on who is doing them. Are LeBron James and Luka Doncic “point guards”? And do you see much resemblance in the respective games of John Stockton and Steph Curry, even though they were/are both technically “point guards”?
Making this about the Jazz specifically again: Did you watch Monday’s game against the Suns? Did you notice how often it was Donovan bringing the ball up the court and initiating the offense, even when “point guard” Mike Conley was out there with him? You’ll notice it going forward, I’ll bet.
And if you’re still kind of old-school about it, you’re forgiven. After a dozen years in Memphis of taking the inbound pass, dribbling up the court, and setting the table, even Mike is still adjusting a bit now.
Dok speaks
(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Jazz center Udoka Azubuike (20) gets slaps from his teammates after getting charged with a flagrant-2 and ejected from the game for the contact with Phoenix Suns forward Abdel Nader (11) which caused him to hit his head on the court. The Jazz cracked open their 2020-21 preseason with their second game against the Phoenix Suns, Dec. 14, 2020.
We talked to rookie center/5/big (yeah, I’m a smart@$$) Udoka Azubuike after Monday’s shootaround, too, and: 1. He’s still with the team, so clearly I’m not a jinx; and 2. He’s just a fun interview — not because he’s particularly humorous or expert at breaking down the game, but because he’s so guileless.
When asked if there had been any butterflies in the stomach ahead of his first game, he didn’t play it cool and deny it: “Yeah. Um, obviously. Of course I was nervous a little bit!” When asked about the difference between college ball and the NBA, he didn’t try to diminish it: “It’s so much faster!” When asked about improving his conditioning, he didn’t get defensive: “I’m in pretty good shape right now, but still, I know that for me to be able to do all I can bring to the table for the team, I need to get in way, way better shape.”
And when asked if he views Rudy Gobert as a mentor, he didn’t downplay the significance of the relationship: “It’s big, it’s really important. That’s a Defensive Player of the Year twice, also an All-Star. I’m looking up to him and the way he plays. Sometimes I try to pick up his mindset and just talk to him — just tell him the stuff that I need to get better on, and [ask] ‘How you get prepared?’ or how he was able to get to where he was. Having a guy like Rudy right beside me is really huge — just learning from him. I’m really a good learner. I like to learn.”
Music I’m listening to
We’ll keep it short and sweet this time …
