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SALT LAKE CITY — Grayson Allen’s not sure when he can drop the pink backpack.
His rookie year is over — well, at least, he thinks it is. His teammates, however, have reminded him — in jest, maybe? — that his first-season duties will last until the first game of next season.
So, to be safe, Allen hasn’t yet retired the infamous backpack he's had to carry all season long.
That’s not the only thing he’s being cautious about heading into his first full NBA offseason, either.
Allen’s end-of-season numbers were good — and in some cases, really good. He set new career-highs in three of his last five games, including a 40-point performance in the Jazz’s regular-season finale to become one of just 14 players since 2000 to score at least 40 in a game in their first season.
So after a year full of long travel days as Allen went from the Jazz to the G-League and back again, did that end-of-year run show that he’s made the step to being a bonafide NBA player?
Um, not exactly.
“I’m careful not to say I’ve arrived,” Allen said last week at the Jazz’s end-of-season media availability. “I definitely don’t feel that way.”
That's not just because the memory of him carrying a massive bag of popcorn on his shoulder onto the team plane for no reason, in particular, is still fresh in his mind ("I don’t even think anyone wanted it, they just wanted me to carry it," Allen said of the lighthearted rookie hazing).
It's because Allen knows he still has a long way to go.
But the late surge did give him plenty of confidence entering the offseason. Allen no longer has to just believe he can compete at the highest level. He has physical evidence that shows he can.
Allen can look back at game film from the beginning of the season, like a game at Memphis where his feet got crossed as he allowed players to drive on by, and compare it to film at the end when he kept his man in front of him.
Related story:
If Ricky Rubio has played his last game as a Jazzman, he went out how he wanted: fighting
In the final games of the season, Rubio was determined to try everything in order to keep the season going. If that meant going chest-to-chest with James Harden to try and show some fight, or calling out teammates, he was willing to do it.“For me, there’s confidence in knowing I can do that, but now it's up to me to put together a summer of work and come back and do it consistently — or do it a higher level or do it even better,” Allen said. "But it’s definitely nice to have that where I can look at the same plays from the beginning of the year and the end of the year and they’ll look a lot different.”
Allen has made strides this season, and that makes him believe more will come in the future.
There were times during the season that Allen realized he made jumps. He noticed one in the middle of the season as he started working more and more with the Salt Lake City Stars. Allen noticed one in April when he started growing more and more comfortable on the NBA court. That last one just about everyone saw.
Allen is hoping his next one will be just as obvious as he starts playing in the summer league in July.
“From the final game of the regular season to the summer league, I should see even more improvement,” he said. “That’s the goal for me — to take advantage of it and use it as an opportunity to keep improving. Hopefully by July, I’m better then and playing better than I am now.”
And hopefully, Allen won't have that pink backpack anymore, either.
