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SALT LAKE CITY — Things have been a bit more peaceful for Will Hardy in the lead up to his second season as Jazz coach.
He didn't have to move across the country, and he's spent more time with his family as they've enjoyed their new Utah home. He doesn't have to learn everyone's name in a new organization, and even his team is mostly full of returning players.
"There's something about familiarity that brings you some calm," Hardy said Friday during his first media availability of the 2023-24 season.
Call it the calm before the storm.
When the Jazz open up training camp next week in Hawaii, Hardy is expecting anything but tranquility.
"I would describe it as 'The Hunger Games.' It's going to be vicious, and I am excited about that," Hardy said.
Lauri Markkanen returns as the undisputed leader of the team, and Walker Kessler is the present and future for the Jazz at center. Aside from that, though, there are plenty of questions; and maybe none more pressing than what Utah's backcourt will look like. That's where the friendly battle royale will really take shape.
The Jazz no longer have a lead guard like Mike Conley to lean on — or, in Hardy's words, to use as a "crutch." Utah relied on Conley to run the offense and get teammates in the right spots. He read the game, and did "a lot of thinking for everybody."
Now, that thinking will fall on a lot of different players. There are five guards who will be in play to start as the lead ball handler for the Jazz at the start of camp: Collin Sexton, Talen Horton-Tucker, Kris Dunn, Jordan Clarkson and Keyonte George.
That said, Hardy doesn't foresee his team necessarily having a true lead guard.
"I don't want to say you're the point guard and you're the two (guard), I don't think that fits our group best," Hardy said.
Instead, Hardy said he'll be viewing them as pairs — which duo plays best together, and which plays best with Utah's front court.
"That flexibility is going to be an adjustment for us because so much of last year was built early in the season on Mike being the person that started the action; we're gonna have to get away from that," Hardy said.
In the end, it could be a lot of mixing and matching as the Jazz try to figure out their best options. A couple players may emerge as the go-to backcourt, or who starts and finishes could be dependent on matchups. Everything is on the table.
"Nothing is set in stone. We could be the team that changes the starting lineup once every 10 days," Hardy said. "If we can get our team to think about that as something that's OK, that's going to be something of a strength."
Especially with the different skill sets the guards have.
Sexton is a lighting bolt with the ball with decent shooting numbers, but he hasn't consistently flashed the traditional point-guard-like set-up abilities.
Horton-Tucker is a bully with the ball and put up huge numbers as the Jazz's starting point guard last season (18.2 points, 6.0 assists, 5.2 rebounds). He also averaged 3.7 turnovers during that run and can take some errant shots, especially due to his less-than-stellar shooting percentages.
Clarkson made a huge jump in playmaking as a starter last season, and at 31, he's still a one-on-one maestro.
Dunn is coming off the best six weeks of his NBA career, and is the most traditional point guard on the team. In his 22 games with the Jazz, he averaged 13.2 points, 5.6 assists and 4.5 rebounds, and shot 47% from deep. If that is at all sustainable, he'll be in the mix for a bigger role.
George, meanwhile, is coming off an impressive Summer League performance, where he showed that many of his perceived weaknesses at Baylor — athleticism, 3-point consistency, shot selection, turnover ratio — may have been a bit oversold.
"Those five guys are going to go at it at training camp and I love that," Hardy said.
Let the games begin.
