Tag: Utah Jazz

Jack Gohlke scores 3-pointer in summer league debut for OKC Thunder

Jack Gohlke scores 3-pointer in summer league debut for OKC Thunder.

One of the highlights of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s stay in Utah for summer league was the pro debut of Oakland’s Jack Gohlke.

The 24-year-old became a household name after he led Oakland to an upset win over Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament. He went undrafted but signed with the Thunder on their SL roster.

In his sole season at Oakland, Gohlke averaged 10.3 3-point attempts. 364 of his 372 attempts were from deep.

In the Thunder’s blowout win over the Utah Jazz, Gohlke checked in for the final four minutes and nailed his lone 3-point attempt.

Gohlke’s sole bucket occurred after he slid to a sidestep 3-pointer. A pump-fake had Kyle Filipowski in the air and the undrafted rookie splashed in the outside shot. It was about as perfect as a first bucket anybody could’ve dreamed of.

The 24-year-old will likely see more action as summer league progresses. He’ll make an otherwise forgettable second half of SL into must-watch television.

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Kyle Filipowski throws down alley-oop dunk for first NBA Summer League bucket

The former Duke big man and Utah’s second-round pick scored his first NBA Summer League basket with an alley-oop dunk on Tuesday.

One day after Jared McCain scored his first professional points during the NBA Summer League, former teammate [autotag]Kyle Filipowski[/autotag] matched his feat on Tuesday.

The former Blue Devils 7-footer and Utah’s second-round pick in the 2024 NBA draft got on the board during the Jazz’s game against Oklahoma City (the same team McCain played during Philadelphia’s first game). During the third quarter, teammate Taevion Kinsey lofted the ball up toward the rim before Filipowski slammed the ball down with both hands and some additional authority.

The rookie finished the game with four points, five rebounds, and a pair of assists after playing a little under 20 minutes. The Jazz lost the game, 98-75.

Filipowski tumbled into the second round despite winning the ACC Rookie of the Year award in 2022-23 and coming back for a Second Team All-American season in 2023-24. He averaged 16.4 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 blocks, and 1.1 steals per game during his final season with the Blue Devils.

Check out McCain’s first NBA Summer League basket here.

Isaiah Collier delivers strong NBA debut with Utah Jazz

Isaiah Collier puts his best feet forward in his first NBA game with the Jazz.

Former USC Trojans All-Pac-12 guard Isaiah Collier made a strong NBA summer debut with the Utah Jazz. Collier came off the bench and stuffed the stat sheet in a high-energy performance. It is notable that even though Collier is a first-round draft pick, he came off the bench in a summer game. One might think that a first-round pick would start in summer games, but the Jazz might have felt that bringing Collier off the bench in the summer makes sense because when the regular season arrives, Collier will definitely be a bench player in Utah. That thought process might have paid off, based on what we saw from Collier in his first NBA game.

Collier scored 14 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, handed out 6 assists, and collected 3 steals. That’s a lot of production in a reserve role. Collier was energized and active at both ends of the floor. He contributed in all facets of the game. Jazz beat writers noted that his defensive effort was better than what they saw on film at USC. NBA analysts were impressed with Collier’s playmaking ability, as the 6 assists indicate. This is a really positive showing, and we hope to see more of it.

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Jazz first-round picks Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier sign rookie contracts

The Utah Jazz signed Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier to their rookie-scale contracts on Tuesday.

The Utah Jazz signed Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier, the 10th and 29th picks in the 2024 NBA draft, to their rookie-scale contracts on Tuesday, the team announced.

Williams was named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team after averaging 11.9 points, three rebounds and 1.6 assists on 41.5% shooting from 3-point range in 24 games. He was second at Colorado in shooting percentage and blocks (16) while ranking third in scoring.

Collier averaged 16.3 points, 4.3 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.5 steals on 49% shooting from the field in 27 games at USC. He was selected to the Pac-12 All-Freshman team after finishing fifth in scoring and eighth in assists in the country among true freshmen.

The Jazz are in talent-collection mode and have added two highly touted players in Williams and Collier in the first round of the draft. They both project to have bright futures ahead and were highly ranked coming out of high school.

The two players will suit up for the Jazz in summer league, beginning in Salt Lake City on Monday against the Memphis Grizzlies. They will play at least five games in the NBA Summer League starting on July 13 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Williams and Collier will be joined by No. 32 pick Kyle Filipowski and roster players Keyonte George, Taylor Hendricks, Walker Kessler and Brice Sensabaugh, among others.

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Kyle Filipowski makes Summer League team for Utah Jazz alongside Armando Bacot

The Utah Jazz unveiled their 2024 Summer League squad on Tuesday, and Kyle Filipowski and Armando Bacot will need to play together.

Duke basketball fans will need to get used to a strange sight during the upcoming NBA Summer League season: [autotag]Kyle Filipowski[/autotag] and Armando Bacot sharing the basketball court in the same jersey.

The Utah Jazz, who drafted Filipowski with the second pick in the second round of the 2024 NBA draft, released their roster for the Salt Lake City Summer League on Tuesday, and their rookie 7-footer made the 16-player team.

Bacot, one of the most hated North Carolina players in Duke history, also made the squad after he signed with the team as an undrafted free agent.

According to ESPN Analytics, the former Blue Devil had more than a 70% chance to get drafted during the first round but instead needed a night’s sleep before he came off the board. He made the Second Team All-American squad last season.

Bacot and Filipowski played each other four times over the last two seasons in the Duke-UNC rivalry, splitting the record with two wins apiece.

Bacot also revealed on a Tuesday podcast episode that he grew up rooting for the Blue Devils, citing Jahlil Okafor and Jabari Parker as his favorite players growing up.

Buha: Lakers are in trade talks with three teams

The Lakers are reportedly still working to try to upgrade their roster.

The NBA is now over 48 hours into its official free agency period, and the Los Angeles Lakers are still almost in exactly the same place they were in before it began.

Thus far, their only move has been to get young guard Max Christie to agree to a four-year, $32 million contract. They went after future Hall of Fame sharpshooter Klay Thompson, only to see him agree to join the Dallas Mavericks.

One may think this offseason can already be declared a bust for the Lakers. But there is still the possibility of a significant trade, and beat writer Jovan Buha said there are three teams they’re talking to in the hopes of swinging a roster-enhancing deal — the Portland Trail Blazers, Brooklyn Nets and Utah Jazz.

Via The Athletic:

“It’s too early to write the Lakers off, of course,” wrote Buha. “There’s always a chance they pull a rabbit out of a hat with a trade or signing. They have been active in recent days, discussing potential deals with Portland, Brooklyn and Utah, among other teams, according to league and team sources. Vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka tends to operate in the shadows — more so this summer than ever, according to league sources. It’s certainly possible he has a contingency plan that saves the offseason.”

The Lakers are reportedly interested in the Blazers’ Jerami Grant, an athletic two-way forward who averaged 21.0 points a game this past season. Just about any potential trade would likely have to include starting point guard D’Angelo Russell, who opted into the final year of his contract that will pay him $18.7 million.

Hanging over the Lakers organization is the free agency of LeBron James. He has reportedly been willing to take a pay cut for the right free agent, and there is one intriguing free agent still available — DeMar DeRozan.

Los Angeles appears to have just a few days left to upgrade its roster and to reach an agreement with James on a new contract.

“James wants to have his contract situation resolved by the start of the Team USA Olympics practice on Saturday in Las Vegas. That’s an unofficial deadline for Los Angeles, at least on the free-agency front.”

As far as DeRozan is concerned, the Lakers have reportedly had some communication with the forward’s agent.

Jazz tried to trade for Nets’ Mikal Bridges before trade to Knicks

Per Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports, the Utah Jazz were hoping to trade for Mikal Bridges before the Brooklyn Nets traded him to the Knicks.

The Brooklyn Nets made their decision to enter a full-scale rebuild by trading Mikal Bridges to their inner-city rival in the New York Knicks for a host of draft picks. However, before the Knicks were able to get their hands on Bridges, there was another team trying to trade for him.

According to Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports, the Utah Jazz attempted to trade for Bridges this week in order to surround star forward Lauri Markkanen with the necessary co-stars to make themselves a better team. It looks like Utah was hoping to add someone like Bridges so that the Jazz could be an interesting team for Paul George to go to in free-agency.

“The Utah Jazz have all the cap space, veteran salaries and exorbitant draft capital to add the type of co-stars — such as Mikal Bridges, once upon a time, whom the team attempted to land this week, sources said, before New York splurged six years of first-round draft assets for the Villanova product — to round out a roster that already features All-Star forward Lauri Markkanen,” Fischer wrote.

As Nets fans know, Brooklyn traded Bridges to the Knicks in exchange for forward Bojan Bogdanovic, who could be traded again at some point, and as many as five first-round picks if the Milwaukee Bucks are still a good team next season (top-4 protected). Fischer reported on last week that the Jazz were one of the teams monitoring Bridges’ trade status, along with New York and the Houston Rockets.

Utah has 15 first-round picks between 2025 and 2031 so they have plenty of draft capital to work with after they traded away Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell with the past few years. Most of the extra first-round picks are from the Minnesota Timberwolves and Cleveland Cavaliers, respectively, so it looks like Brooklyn may have had its pick of draft picks to own in exchange for Bridges and they chose the Knicks’ draft stash.

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Kyle Filipowski, former UNC rival Armando Bacot set to be NBA teammates

After taking former Duke basketball star Kyle Filipowski in the NBA draft, the Utah Jazz signed his UNC rival Armando Bacot.

After two years and four intense battles on opposite sides of the biggest rivalry in college basketball, [autotag]Kyle Filipowski[/autotag] and [autotag]Armando Bacot[/autotag] might need to learn to get along.

After the Utah Jazz took Filipowski in the second round of this week’s NBA draft, they reportedly signed Bacot, the former North Carolina center, to a contract as an undrafted free agent. The Athletic’s Tony Jones reported the deal.

Bacot spent five seasons with the Tar Heels and played 169 games for the program, including 10 regular-season battles with the Blue Devils. He also helped defeat Duke in the Final Four back in 2022, the last game of Mike Krzyzewski’s legendary career, when he pulled down 21 rebounds during a single game.

The run, combined with a victory in Coach K’s final home game, made him one of the most hated UNC players in rivalry history on Duke’s campus.

Filipowski only spent the last two years in Durham. He and the Blue Devils swept Bacot and the Tar Heels in 2022-23, the first year of the Jon Scheyer era, before UNC took both games last season.

Filipowski averaged 20.3 points and 8.0 rebounds in his four collegiate games against Bacot, including three 20-point performances and one double-double.

Isaiah Collier’s likely role and minutes in Year 1 for Utah Jazz

Isaiah Collier will likely come off the bench but should get decent minutes (at least 15 per game) in his rookie season.

Wednesday night the Utah Jazz selected USC freshman guard Isaiah Collier with the 29th overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft. The freshman phenom fell way out of the lottery in the first round. Collier, the No. 1 recruit in the nation in the 2023 class, averaged 16.3 points, 4.3 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game last season for Andy Enfield and the USC Trojans.

Collier struggled during his freshman season and suffered a fracture to his hand in January, but now he has an opportunity to battle for point guard minutes with the Jazz.

At 6’5 Collier is a combo guard who can play the point and has the athleticism and elusiveness to play the shooting guard position as well. Collier can bring tons of energy to the floor and add pressure to a defense with his ball-handling, shiftiness and strength.

His frame also is sturdy and enables him to finish through contact at the rim. His decision-making can be shaky, but he’s a threatening setup man due to his elusiveness, gravity and passing skill. Turnovers will have to be limited for the rookie to have minutes on the Utah Jazz roster.

The Georgia native reminds me of Tyreke Hill and D’Angelo Russell for his ceiling in the NBA. Expect Collier to make an impact on this Jazz team with his instant offense off the bench. He won’t be a starter but will certainly get his share of minutes in Utah under coach Will Hardy.

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Kyle Filipowski gets to play in the NBA alongside a player he modeled his game after

Kyle Filipowski’s draft slide has an unexpected a silver lining. He gets to play with one of the NBA stars he models his own game after.

Nobody expected former Duke basketball star [autotag]Kyle Filipowski[/autotag] to slide into the second round of the 2024 NBA draft.

However, when the Utah Jazz finally called his name on Thursday afternoon, he did have a bonus for his patience. He’ll get to play alongside Lauri Markkanen.

The Finnish 7-footer has been in the league since 2017 and was named the Most Improved Player in 2022-23 after he averaged 25.6 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game in his first season with Utah. He made the All-Star Game for the first time that season as well.

We aren’t singling him out because he’s a good mentor for Filipowski, however. We’re singling him out because Filipowski already did so himself. In an interview with The Athletic ahead of the draft, the former Duke star mentioned Markkanen and three-time MVP Nikola Jokic as players he watches a lot on film.

“There’s a lot of bigs now that are starting to become more versatile,” he said about the duo, two 7-footers with ball-handling skills he can emulate.

Filipowski showed a glimpse of similar talent as a sophomore when he averaged 2.8 assists per game and made nearly 35% of his 3-pointers en route to Second-Team All-American honors and a spot on the All-ACC First Team.