Jazz Mailbag – Shaq Harrison’s Role And Are The Jazz All In?

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – In the latest edition of the Jazz Notes podcast, Ben Anderson sat down with Sarah K. Spencer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to preview the team’s matchup Friday against the Atlanta Hawks. As is tradition, Anderson also answered your mailbag questions about the team.

The Jazz sit at 7-4 to start the season and appear to have their best basketball ahead of them despite Bojan Bogdanovic‘s shooting woes to begin the season.

This editions questions including Shaq Harrison’s role with the team, if the Jazz are truly all-in in their dedication to winning, and who the Jazz do and don’t match up well against in the West.

If your podcast questions aren’t addressed in this article, they were likely answered in the podcast, so give it a listen in the player below.

Mailbag Questions And Answers

Shaq has gotten minimal playing time while Oni is getting some rotational minutes. I like Shaq and his potential/fit, but do you think the Jazz try to get out from his contract to duck some of the tax before the deadline?

— Drawing the Defense (@drawing_defense) January 14, 2021

Anderson: Shaq Harrison continues to be a hot topic of conversation for Jazz fans despite getting limited minutes off the bench.

Right now, I think there are two things holding Harrison back. First, his lack of time with the Jazz, having signed little more than a month ago and not getting to spend the full training camp with the team.

Second, the Jazz have a true logjam in the backcourt in front of Shaq with Mike Conley, Donovan Mitchell, Jordan Clarkson, Joe Ingles, Miye Oni, and Harrison.

Right now, with Ingles out, Oni is getting a handful of extra minutes in the first half of games to help ease the burden on the rotation guards. He played 17 minutes against the Cavaliers because the game was a true blowout, but did show his value on the defensive ending while knocking down 2-4 from three.

The Jazz system is so heavily reliant on three-point shooting, especially from their guards (due to the fact that neither Rudy Gobert nor Derrick Favors are floor-spacing bigs) that Oni’s spot-up shooting and solid defense might be more valuable than Harrison’s secondary ball-handling skills and hyper-aggressive defense.

Regardless, I would suspect Shaq cracks the Jazz rotation at some point, though it may be a result of the team finding itself short-handed due to the league’s ongoing issues with COVID-19.

I don’t expect the Jazz to try to move him for salary cap purposes unless it felt like he was a bad cultural fit.

What players on the roster do you not consider part of the Mitchell/Gobert long term plan? Is there a future "All-in" decision coming (where the future is probably compromised) or are we sort of seeing the front office's best efforts?

— Tommy Newell (@the__toe) January 14, 2021

Anderson: Looking purely at the Jazz salary cap table, the only main roster piece that I wouldn’t expect to be a part of the team’s long term future is Mike Conley. With so many high-profile names signing early extensions before the 2021 offseason, Conley’s value skyrocketed. It hasn’t helped that he’s playing great basketball either.

The Jazz own Conley’s bird rights and would have the ability to resign the guard in the offseason, but the salary tax implications would be significant.

There’s a chance this late in his career, with three young children that Conley doesn’t want to continue to bounce around the NBA and likes his fit in Utah enough to take a significant financial discount, but that’s unfair to expect.

Otherwise, Bogdanovic, Clarkson, Ingles, O’Neale, and Favors all seem like logical rotation pieces going forward. The Jazz would really benefit from Oni, Elijah Hughes, or Trent Forrest proving they are legitimate NBA players in the next few months.

It seems like the Jazz play well depending on the matchup (no quick scoring guards, drop big defense) rather than on the talent level of the opposing team. Which of the top 10 teams in the west do we matchup best against? Which do we matchup worst against?

— Carsen Lindorff (@CarsenLindorff) January 14, 2021

Anderson: I think early in the season the Jazz should feel pretty good about what they have seen from themselves, and from the rest of the West so far.

Denver seems to have taken a step backward with the loss of Jerami Grant and I would be surprised if Houston can’t jell quickly enough to be a threat to overtake the Jazz in the playoff picture, but that remains to be seen.

Otherwise, the Jazz sit in third place in the Western Conference and have already shown they can hang with the likes of the Los Angeles Clippers, even when they haven’t played their best basketball.

However, the Jazz loss to the Suns should be an eye-opener and felt eerily similar to the team’s shortcomings in the playoffs last year.

Devin Booker played the role of Jamal Murray, while Mikal Bridges looked like Jerami Grant streaking all over the floor disrupting the Jazz guards and forwards alike. When you mix in Chris Paul, who has always caused problems in Utah, that might be a uniquely bad matchup for the Jazz as the season progresses.

Additionally, the Lakers only seem to have gotten better from last season, and the Jazz still have no answers for LeBron James or Anthony Davis.

The Jazz three-point shooting can allow them to win any game, including matchups against the Suns and Lakers, but it can’t be a guess every time they step on the floor about whether they have a shot at winning only because they’re hot from behind the three-point line.

If I didn’t answer your questions here, listen to the podcast above, or subscribe here.

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