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SALT LAKE CITY — NBA rotations aren't usually that deep.
"I think 10 players is hard, 11 is almost impossible — unless you're playing people 23 minutes a game," Jazz coach Will Hardy said.
Once the regular season rolls around, the Jazz don't want to limit players like Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler, Jordan Clarkson and John Collins to that amount of minutes. So what does that mean for the plethora of guards?
Saturday's 138-133 preseason win over Portland at the Delta Center may have provided an answer.
How does a team find time for so many perimeter players? Having four share the court at the same time is one potential solution.
Late in the first quarter, the Jazz went to a lineup of Collin Sexton, Kris Dunn, Keyonte George, Ochai Agbaji around Walker Kessler. Utah swapped out Talen Horton-Tucker for Sexton to begin the second quarter, and returned to the small-ball lineup in the second half, as well.
Utah has been practicing with those types of lineups, and Hardy wanted to see how it would look in a live-game setting.
So what did he think?
"We think that that group, they've showed us — we've messed around with it in practice some — they've showed us the ability to really pressure the ball defensively and then, offensively, create advantages off the dribble," Hardy said. "So we're going to have to keep working defensively, if there's something we can do a little differently to help them be in a better position to rebound as a group."
To Hardy, it wasn't just merely an experiment. There's been a lot of thought put into lineups and rotations, and it's one that he truly is considering being an option once the regular season comes along.
"Nothing that we've thrown out is, you know, spin the wheel and just see what happens," he said. "There's positives and negatives to every group and we want to see what they look like."
He went on to add that he's just "trying to get our best guys on the court."
And in order to do that, he might have to jut go with the four-guard group, especially with how Utah's perimeter players performed against Portland.
George had 17 points on 4-of-8 shooting and four assists, Sexton had 16 points on just seven shots and six assists, Clarkson had 9 points and six assists, Horton-Tucker had 8 points and six assists, Dunn had 9 points in only 11 minutes, and Agbaji had 9 points on three shots.
All six of those players shot at least 50% from the field. On nights like Saturday's, it's difficult to keep any of them off the court. So the Jazz are seeing if they can play most of them together.
"I think they handled themselves pretty well, but there is stuff they can clean up," Hardy said.
