The Jazz Starting Kris Dunn at PG Next Season Would Be a Total Shock

The Utah Jazz enter next season with an array of starting point guard options on the table.

As the 2023 NBA offseason gradually wraps up, teams and fans alike now begin the slow transition into the next regular season. With that always comes the debates surrounding how each team’s starting lineup will come to unfold. The Utah Jazz have been no exception, finding themselves in the center of a deep starting point guard dilemma.

By collecting about five plausible options to be next season’s starter, the Jazz can go in almost any direction to find some nice on-court production and value. However, with such a tight-knit collection of players, there are simply a ton of appealing options on which coach Will Hardy to lean.

One of the choices to have emerged as the team’s starter is 2016’s 5th-overall NBA Draft pick, Kris Dunn. After a productive campaign from the end of last February into April, he has been able to essentially revive what was a career that was almost dead in the water. Thankfully, Dunn’s averages of 13.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists have shown NBA teams there might be more left in the tank than we once thought.

Such an impressive season end has entirely switched his narrative from being almost out of the league into what some consider the best point guard candidate to have a spot in the starting five. While a ‘worst-to-first’ type of story would be both extremely inspiring and impressive to see, Jazz fans may need to pump the brakes a bit on this newly found hype train.

Should Kris Dunn be the day one starter for the Jazz next season?

— Utah Jazz On SI (@JazzOnSI) August 6, 2023

Let’s take a step back and analyze this from an unbiased perspective.

Kris Dunn played a total of 22 games during last season, all of which came after All-Star Weekend. That’s barely even a quarter of the season, all coming from a time when the Jazz were trying all they could to stop winning games. Dunn played really well, but using that sample size to dictate him as the best option to start at an especially deep position group is extremely premature.

In the 26-minute average Kris Dunn played for Utah last season, Jordan Clarkson appeared in three of those games, Collin Sexton in one, and Talen Horton-Tucker started over him in every single contest he played in. Seeing Dunn walk into next season and replicate the numbers he did last year would be absolutely stunning.

With much more competition down the depth chart, Dunn will not be receiving the 26 minutes a game he saw back in March. With a currently non-guaranteed deal entering training camp, Dunn will likely have to focus more on securing a safe spot on this roster as opposed to being the starting PG.

Dunn could bring some immense value to the Jazz with his stellar perimeter defense and newly acquired efficiency (54/47/77 shooting splits), but slotting him in as a starter with this surrounding cast is unrealistic. Not even to mention the Jazz’s selection of Summer League standout Keyonte George in this past draft, there’s too much talent around Dunn to merit a spot in the starting five.

If the Jazz find themselves in a similar state at the tail end of next season with multiple injuries (or when teams begin to value draft position over team success), that would be the premiere time to see some increased run and opportunity from Dunn. With over $20M due to Jordan Clarkson this season, a fully-healthy Collin Sexton ready, Talen Horton-Tucker in a contract year, and a new first-round pick in Keyonte George, Kris Dunn might inevitably find himself at the end of this point guard food chain.

There’s still ample time for Dunn in training camp and pre-season to carve out an early role in this rotation, even if it's on a non-guaranteed deal. Still, things may turn harder than it seems once October’s season opener is officially underway.

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