Kelly Olynyk thinks Jazz have good foundation for rebuild

SALT LAKE CITY — Kelly Olynyk has been in this situation before; he's just a little older this time around.

Within a few weeks of being traded to Boston on draft night in 2013, Olynyk saw the organization go through massive changes. First, the team hired a first-year coach in Brad Stevens. Then, it traded away All-Stars Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce for a small army of future draft picks.

Suddenly, Olynyk was on a rebuilding squad with a rookie head coach, and all of it had been constructed by Danny Ainge. Yep, sounds pretty similar to the situation he's in now in Salt Lake City after being traded for Bojan Bogdanovic last week.

Not that he's complaining.

"I'm excited. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to be a part of this out here," said Olynyk after Utah's first practice of the season on Tuesday. "I love the people they have in the front office. I think they have a great direction and plan in place in where they want to get to and want to go and how to get there. I believe in them."

With his previous experience in Boston under Ainge, Olynyk can offer a unique perspective on Utah's rebuild.

"In any business, overnight successes don't actually happen overnight, right? It takes work, it takes time — little building blocks," he said.

The Celtics won just 25 games during Olynyk's rookie season before going on a run that includes eight straight trips to the playoffs, including four trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, and a trip to the NBA Finals just last season.

Olynyk didn't get to experience all of Boston's success — he left in the summer of 2017 as a free agent — but he was there at the beginning stages, and he sees some those same "little building blocks" in Utah.

"We're almost in the exact same situation with Danny that they're in here right now," he said. "You have some older guys with experience, you've got some young guys, you have a bunch of draft picks coming in for the next few years and just trying to get better every single day. I think it's gonna be great for us. Everybody's going to be pulling rope in the same direction, and that's how you move things."

Olynyk admitted the trade "came out of nowhere" for him; it was just a few days before training camp, which forced him to quickly pack up some things and get to Salt Lake City. Still, he's excited to back with Ainge — even if he's now one of the "older guys." Olynyk is entering his 10th NBA season, and the Jazz see him as someone who can be a good veteran leader for a rebuilding squad.

That's not to say he won't help on the court, too.

Olynyk averaged 19.0 points and 8.4 rebounds in 27 games after being traded to the Houston Rockets in the latter part of the 2020-21 season in an extended role. He averaged 9.1 points and 4.4 rebounds last season in Detroit.

"Kelly is a really versatile player," Jazz head coach Will Hardy said. "He's, obviously, been around the NBA for a while. So he has a lot of just sort of corporate knowledge of how to play in the NBA. But he's a really smart, skilled basketball player who can play a couple of different positions on the floor — just provides a lot of intelligence."

If his intel on a rebuild is accurate, the Jazz may have something going for them in a few years.

"He knows what he's doing," Olynyk said of Ainge. "He has been around the game for decades. It's fun to be back and be united with Danny."

Related topics