Is Collin Sexton a long-term option at point guard for the Utah Jazz
The Utah Jazz have to figure out Collin Sexton and the point guard situation.
The Utah Jazz have a complicated situation to figure out at point guard. They have several options, ranging from Collin Sexton to Jordan Clarkson and young rookie Keyonte George. They also have Talen Horton-Tucker and Kris Dunn to consider on top of that, and these are just the players up for the point guard role.
And the problem is, no one has an idea what the Jazz are going to do at the position. ESPN and CBS list Sexton as the starter, while Lineups.com have Clarkson starting. It’s a messy situation, one that some fans may not understand. It sure seems to some that fans think this is a “good problem to have”. After all, if one doesn’t work, just rotate to the other.
That’s the problem though. There’s an old football adage that says “If you have two starting-caliber quarterbacks you really don’t have any”. If there is no clear favorite, then you don’t have a player you can rely on to be “that guy”.
And that’s a problem. Especially when the team has nearly two identical players in Sexton and Clarkson. They’re both bucket-getters, though Sexton is arguably the more efficient scorer, but neither is a passer or a true point guard.
The team had one in Mike Conley, but they traded him away to the Timberwolves, and now they have two guys who are nearly identical vying for the starting spot. Clarkson mostly played shooting guard during the 2022-2023 season, but he’s played point before, and with Sexton not being the most dynamic passer, doubts are fair about what to expect from him at point guard.
Just looking at last year alone, it was Dunn, not Sexton or Clarkson, that was the better facilitator. So the question has to be asked, can either Sexton or Clarkson take the spot over for good? More importantly, if the Jazz decides to run Sexton and Clarkson at the same time, will their similar play styles help or hinder the team?
It didn’t work too well in Cleveland when Sexton was paired with Darius Garland, a player with similar skills to Sexton. So are the Jazz going to be going down that rabbit hole? It’s likely that Clarkson isn’t long for the Jazz, and that they just extended him so that they had more time to consider trading him.
He’s not really in line with the age range of the rest of the core, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get dealt at some point between now and the trade deadline.
If that does happen, all eyes will be on Sexton to run the offense, and after seeing him play since 2018, it’s fair to say that he isn’t the kind of guy who gets others involved in the offense. If that ends up being the case, the team will just have to keep looking for that guy. Maybe George or Dunn can be it for the Jazz.
Only time will tell.
