After six long months of anticipation for Jazz basketball, fans finally caught a glimpse of in-game action on Sunday night when the Jazz faced off against the Denver Nuggets in their first of four preseason games this season.
After the selection of Darryn Peterson in the NBA Draft, the trade of Walker Kessler, and a couple of miscellaneous additions here and there, one of the biggest questions fans have had about this Jazz roster has been, “who will the starting five be opening night?”
Will Hardy might
have given us a glimpse at his preferred starting lineup on Sunday.
For their first preseason game, the Jazz decided to start Jusuf Nurkic and Darryn Peterson for a lineup that looked like this:
- Keyonte George
- Darryn Peterson
- Lauri Markkanen
- Jaren Jackson Jr.
- Jusuf Nurkic
Ace Bailey, who was a potential candidate to start, came off the bench in the 109-97 win.
Jazz head coach Will Hardy wasn’t explicitly asked — therefore he didn’t explicitly state — if this was his preferred starting lineup heading into the season.
It’s worth noting that in Hardy’s previous four seasons as the head coach, he has never started a rookie on opening night. And that’s a long list of rookies that he’s had at his disposal. Walker Kessler, Ochai Agbaji, Keyonte George, Brice Sensabaugh, Taylor Hendricks, Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier, Cody Williams and Ace Bailey all had to wait their turns to hear their names in the starting units.
Peterson didn’t have the ideal game against Denver, only scoring three points on one-of-five shooting, but Hardy stated that Peterson was making “the right choices” throughout the game, just that his shots weren’t falling.
The Jazz will play the Nuggets again on Tuesday at 7 p.m. MT.
