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SALT LAKE CITY — It was a whirlwind couple days for new Jazz guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
At a morning shootaround earlier this week, he was told he'd been traded from New Orleans to Portland. Upon landing in the Rose City, he found out he'd been flipped to Utah.
"It's been fast, change of pace, time zones, everything," Alexander-Walker said during his first press conference as a member of the Utah Jazz. "Now, here we are. But I'm excited to be here and I'm grateful."
It was a somewhat surprising move by the Jazz; Utah's in win-now mode, and using the team's one major trade chip (Joe Ingles' expiring contract) to acquire a 23-year-old developing guard didn't exactly scream "all in."
Call it a bet — a bet on the Jazz's pre-draft scout, their coaching staff and Alexander-Walker, himself.
"We play in a different way than he's been raised in the NBA," Jazz general manager Justin Zanik said.
A way, the Jazz hope, will better suit Alexander-Walker's game. Utah liked the shooting guard ahead of the 2019 draft and saw a hard-working kid with size and a lot of tools. They saw a prospect who would develop into a good NBA player. Nearly three years later, they still feel the same, so when he became available, they took a chance.
Was it an underwhelming deal for a team trying to contend? Perhaps, but Zanik said the Jazz made it with eyes to the future.
That doesn't mean the team has soured on its chances this season — just that the market wasn't really there for them to add a significant piece. Grabbing someone like Jerami Grant from the Detroit Pistons with Ingles' contract (plus a first-round pick) was always a pipe dream, and making a move for a Josh Richardson or Harrison Barnes type player would have cost more and likely wouldn't have moved the needle much anyway.
Utah wasn't going to make a move just to make a move. By making a move for Alexander-Walker, the Jazz got a player they believed they could develop — think Ingles and Royce O'Neale — into a major contributor.
"We've always wanted to bet on our coaching staff, our culture here, our development staff to take some of the really good things that I think Nickeil shows and make it even better," Zanik said.
That's something Alexander-Walker is also excited for, too. He said he only showed "flashes" of the player he could be while in New Orleans, and he's eager to see how his game works in Utah's system and alongside perennial All-Star players.
"I don't point fingers or say they held me back or anything," Alexander-Walker said. "I just can only imagine what I'm going to bring to this team. And I'm excited because a lot of it goes well with who I am."
So who is he?
"I'm a basketball player who can make plays off the reads, off catches, pick-and-roll actions, which is a lot of what goes on here," Alexander-Walker said. "I'm really at my best getting in the paint and then making plays from there, and also as a perimeter defender. That's where my main focus is right now."
If you were to make a list of all the things Quin Snyder wants in a player, that would be pretty close to matching Alexander-Walker's rundown of himself. Now, has he excelled at all those during his short NBA career? Not exactly.
Alexander-Walker has been wildly inefficient over his early seasons; Utah sees him playing differently with them. Zanik goes back to the young guard's tools and the scout the team had on him coming out of college. The Jazz see a better player than Alexander-Walker has shown and believe they can bring the best out of him.
They're making a bet.
Zanik admits, though, that it'll be a multi-month process to get Alexander-Walker acclimated — a timetable that means he might not be ready to make a meaningful impact come playoff time. To the Jazz brass, however, the trade deadline wasn't about becoming a contender because they already saw themselves as one.
"We're a very competitive team. When we're healthy, when we're connected, we do have a chance to contend for a title," Zanik said.
Utah is choosing to trust its 28-10 start and the dominant regular season last year over an injury- and COVID-riddled month and a playoff loss when the team was banged up.
"I'm excited about this group," Zanik said. "We want to make a bet on this group after all the things that we've gone through this year with injuries and COVID. We still have proof of concept in this group."
