EMERGENCE: Why Walt Clayton Jr. Is SURGES into Utah Jazz’s Future – Anatomy of a BLOWOUT

EMERGENCE: Why Walt Clayton Jr. Is SURGES into Utah Jazz’s Future – Anatomy of a BLOWOUT

Walter Clayton Jr., thank you so much for your last few games. So, we can talk about that next on Locked on Jazz. You are Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz. Part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked on Jazz, part of the Locked On Network, now the number one sports podcast network. Hello, I’m David Lock, radio voice of Utah Jazz, Jazz NBA insider. This is Locked on Jazz, your daily podcast on the Utah Jazz, giving you insight, expertise, geeky numbers, and hopefully making it way better to be a jazz fan each and every day. Thank you so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen to the day. We are free and available on all podcasting apps as well as on YouTube and the Everydayers. You’re the best. And today we introduce the Everydayer Club. I’ll tell you more about that as the show goes on, but I want to get to the content right away. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. 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Uh you can get it by going to lockedonpodcast.com everyday. That’s lockedpodcast.com everyday. The ad free program is $5 a month or 50 a year and the all access is 15 a month or 150 a year. It’s the everyday club. Check it out. Join in. I’m super excited about it. I’ll talk more about it later, but let’s get to it right now. Thank God for Walt Clayton Jr. Woohoo. Thank goodness for Walt Clayton Jr. Here’s what we got on the show today. On the show today, we’ll do our regular trends Monday. I will I did it. I watched the re watch the first quarter of the Knicks game and the Thunder game last night. Honestly, I think you’re going to be surprised with it. I have to tell you, it is not some thing where our guys aren’t coming out and playing. And I don’t know what’s worse. It’s they’re not It’s not that they’re not playing. We’re just not making plays. We’re just like I mean on some level we’re just not as good as the other guys or we’re just these days we haven’t been. That’s the truth. It’s a little painful uh depending which way you look at it. And I will break that down for you uh here on the program uh today. But let’s start with the exciting thing of Wall Clayton Jr. And let me remind you the goals of the season. The goals of the season for the Utah Jazz were continue development. And what that meant is that Walker Kesler was supposed to continue to develop. Okay, that’s shot. That’s out. Lowry have a better year done. And we had seven young play Ace Bailey’s got to start his trajectory to being a star. We have no choice. Ace Bailey has to be a star. And then we had seven young players And we want to see honestly just whether two or three of them can hit and hit at some level rotation player. Hopefully one of them is a starter. Keonte has done it. That is that happened. And now we’re looking to watch and Ke still going up and down a little bit but he’s really he’s emerged. It’s really fabulous. Now we’re looking in those draft with Bryce Sensbar Taylor Hendrickx, Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier, Kyle Filipowski or Wal Clayton Jr. Now we are looking watching those six and right now Walter Clayton Jr. is showing the signs that he might be the one of one of those guys that’s able to make that step. He was in a horrific rookie haze. He started the year fairly well. Isaiah Collier came back. He fell out of the rotation. He played once in a span of five games. He came in the midst of that. He really lost his bearings when he came back from not playing. In his next three games, he went three of 12, 0 for seven from three. He was just non-impactful. I love I love the phrase that Ron Boon uses, we talked about post guest last night where he was just out there. Then in the second Houston game when the Jazz won, he was really good. He had five rebounds, six assists. He shot it one of three from three. He just had an aggressiveness and a drive. And now all of a sudden in his last four games, Walt Clayton is shooting 53% from the field, 41% from three. He’s seven to eight from the free throw line. That’s not a terrible two free throws a game’s not great, but it’s not terrible. And this looks like 22 assists, six turnovers. So, you got to remember a few things about Walt. One, while he is a point guard, and he has no choice but to play point guard in our league, he’s they haven’t listed 6’4, he’s not. Is he’s a scoring guard. Every single one of these kids is a scoring guard when they come in league. So, what Will Hardy talked about yesterday with Walt was that Walt comes in the league and he’s trying to be so safe and he’s trying to do everything right and he’s trying he understands his role and he’s a rookie and and there’s a level where he’s got to get back to Walt’s game is that he gets the ball comes off a pick and roll looks to the rim either looks for a one if they go under he takes going to take his pull up three or he’s going to drive to the basket look to the rim that’s that’s Walt’s game that’s what it’s been his whole life and then he comes into the NBA and he’s got Lowry and he’s got Keont he’s got all these other guys and he suddenly became come off the pick and roll look for everybody else and see what everybody else can do And in turn, he lost his bearings a little bit. And there’s a rookie haze like Reed Shepard was in the rookie haze for the entire season. Walt seems to have possibly busted out of this. He took Isaiah Collier’s second half rotation minutes last night. His off the bounce three, which is was his absolute forte in college, had not come with him yet in the NBA. And you kind of assumed it would happen. I was talking to some people around the Jazz and their comment about Walt was, you know what, he literally is not doing the things we know he can do well. Like when we drafted him, there was a certain question of like we knew he could read the game, right? We knew he’d make the right decisions. We knew he knew was a winner. We knew he had leadership. We knew he could shoot. Like there were things we knew. There also things we don’t know like can he is he going to be capable of playing uh defense at times laterally? He looks like he gets blown by. Is he going to be physically able to handle league? Can he actually bring the ball up the floor well enough? Like those are the things that were are questions and are still questions, but the other things he wasn’t even doing those well, honestly. He wasn’t doing like the things you knew he could do well. That’s when you know you’re just in the rookie haze. And we’re beginning to see him bound out of it. Last four games he’s taken 10 off the bounce threes. He’s three of 10. Okay, that like he’s one off being incredible. 40% on off the bounce threes. It would be the best would be close to the best in the league. He started the year three of 16 on off the bounce threes and had kind of become reluctant to take him. You’re also see him just drive to the basket and play in in the paint a little bit. He’s taken 17 threes and he’s taken 19 twos just and he’s 12 of 19 on those twos. That’s probably a little high and not very realistic. some of these numbers. I don’t think we’re going to expect Walt Clayton to shoot 53% for his career, but we’re seeing him play play his game, get back to playing what he can do and showing the things that the reason why the Jazz moved up in the draft to take him. What we’re going to do is tomorrow we’re going to look at every we look at we looked at 1 through 10 and then we’ll look at 11 through 20. I know we’re at 22. God forbid we have to look at those last two games. We can just erase those. Um, we’ll look at tomorrow on the show. We’re going to look at 1 through 10 compared to 11 through 20 and what’s been different and what’s been similar. And as I said we would do at the 20 game mark. We will reset the rankings for all of those seven guys. Key is going to be at the top. Clayton may be number two. Clay Clayton may jump everybody else as the second guy right now and the most likely to be a part of this rotation when the Jazz hit. That’s that’s how good a stretch he’s had. the 18th pick of the draft’s looking all right right now. And that’s a big step for us in the midst of getting just run off the floor in back-to-back games by NBA final contenders. And trust me, calling games when we’re down 73 points in the first 36 minutes of each of the last two points. We’ve been outscored by 73 points in the first 72 minutes. It’s not great. I don’t complain. I love it. I still, but it’s not great, right? It’s not ideal. It’s way more fun. And it’s not fun for the players is actually what jumps out to me when I watch it. Remember the point of the season is these developmental pieces and one of them is to see which of those seven kids is ready. And right now Walt Clayton is jumping ahead of the others. Kyle Philipaskky had a nice night last night. He may be moving up that list as well. All right, I’m going to surprise you. You I went back Well, I’m going to surprise you. Why would you possibly have done this? I went back and rewatched the game last night and I rewatched the first quarter last night and I watched the first quarter against the Knicks. Um it’s great. Like it’s certainly not gratitude um to open your day with meditation and gratitude and then go watch that. No, I’m just kidding. Um I was surprised. A lot of times I’ll watch this and I’ll see pretty horrific stuff and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, you’re I got a different story to tell you today.” It’s next on Locked on Jazz. Thanks so much for making Locked on Jazz your first listen of the day. Thank you to Murdoch Chevy for being one of our longtime sponsors. The Murdoch family has been with us probably for eight years now. And over at Murdoch Chevy, they’ve got a lot of wonderful things going on. 2026 Silverado 1500LT is being leased right now for under $400 a month. The Murdochs have been serving Utah now for about a hundred years, by the way. Like, it’s crazy. They are just a part of our community. They’ve been amazing. 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All access, the big shebang, one-on-one interactions with me, exclusive direct text messaging to you, daily exclusive newsletter into your inbox about the program, add free locked on sports today, access to the Discord channel, 15% discount at the locked on team store. It goes on on leaf to lean college draft expert exclusive content. He’ll be giving you episodes. He’ll be giving you postgame reports on the top sets of players in getting ready for the drafting. He’ll lead you up to the draft with all that exclusive content. I’ll give you in-game updates of what I’m seeing and taking place. That’s all part of the all access program uh on the Everydayer Club. Go to lockdonpodcast.com everydayer for more details. All right. I watched the last game, two games. I’m going to do the Thunder game first. Honestly, you want to Here’s what here’s my thesis statement. What I saw was a bunch of guys actually executing, trying to make the right plays, missing shots, so not being good enough, not not being able to good enough to complete the play and then wearing down a little bit from the lack of success, which is concerning like concerning like whether we’ve broken a little bit here, which is interesting that it happened coming off a win against Brooklyn. So last night we open up the game, we make a bunch of plays. Nerk misses. Opening game, we go down 10-1. All that happens is Nerk misses a bunch of close shots. Philipowski has backto-back bad closeouts on Chad Homegrren. Okay, that’s bad. Like that also might be a skill thing like flip closed out. Homegrren drove by a left hand, got in the basket and dunked. It happened twice in a row. Ace Bailey got in the paint, froze a little bit, wasn’t sure where to go, held the ball too long. That’s going to h against Thunder. That’s a turnover. That leads to a fast break the other way. I thought we could have been a little bit better in our halfcourt defense at that point where I thought or transition defense where I thought Flip could have possibly tried to impact Jaylen Williams a little bit more and next thing you know it’s 10-1 just like that it’s 10 to one and this was not a good start. Okay, so that’s certainly but Nerkage misses a few bunnies. We miss a shot or two that maybe we should have made and next thing you know we’re down 10 to one, right? Like that’s that’s not great. Nerk missed an eight-footer. Ace Bailey had the turnover I just talked about that made it 8-1. Ace Bailey missed a 13-footer and next thing you know it was 10-1. It really didn’t hap like it happened super fast. Um but we ace missed a shot and didn’t know what to do in the circumstance because he’s young and experienced. It’s 10-1. We then play really, really well. Out of that next timeout, we play really well. We go under backto-back pick and rolls exactly like we’re supposed to. We It forces two misses. We have a wellexecuted play for Bailey for three and he misses. We have a transition. Nerkish gets a wide open three and he misses. We ace um drives wide open flip for corner three, he misses. We really played well. We just didn’t make the shots. You can decide what that is. Honestly, it’s we’re just maybe not that good. Like like the guy like we just didn’t make the shots. Did some other things all right during that stretch, but you know, we really played pretty well. And that next stretch of basketball was 88. Offensive possessions were executed. Defense was really good rotating. Defensive game plan was executed. It was a really good stretch of basketball. Keonte hits a three right then and now we’ve made some substitutions and on the first time back Bryce Sensah and Isaiah Collier miscommunicate on who’s guarding who. I I don’t know whose fault this is but both of them go to Osam Jen and so then Sensiba sprinting across the floor to try to get back for a wideopen three which actually misses but then Jen gets the rebound. The next play drives he gets knocked off goes to the ground. He’s late getting back transition wise and it leads to a homegrren dunk because OKC just moves the ball and Jaylen Williams can the center Jaylen Williams move the ball to get the guy the ball and then on the next play Isaiah Collier’s the low man and I think he’s probably late to rotate and Brendan Carlson dunks on his head on the other end like your low man’s 6’2 rotating on a 71 guy is not ideal and Kevin loves in defensively so he gives Carlson a bunch of room and he buries a three. Brendan Carlson is really not an elite three-point shooter go before last night’s game. And so a little bit of this is like what the heck, right? Like they’re just making plays. Brendan Carlson comes in. I have to look at last night’s numbers because these guys all got so hot last night that they they like blew up their regular numbers. Brendan Carlson came in the game last night. He’s shooting 35% from three. It’s a great story. Bingham High kid who’s making a name for himself. It’s great. And he hits two in a row. They run a pick and pop that the Jazz don’t rate rotate. Great, too. Bryce misses a layup. Then we start to fall apart. Bryce goes one-on-one into a tough step back three. Bryce goes one-on-one and loses the ball out of bounds. They start having insane shot making. Collier, I will say offensively we’re very horizontal when he was in the game at this stretch, but at this point we’re now getting thumped and you can kind of see it. Bryce every time down the floor is kind of when we don’t defensively he’s putting his hands out like what am I supposed to do? Like you can just see the body language in them kind of wilt a little bit here under this duress. And Osam Jen is making threes which he doesn’t do. And AJ Mitchell, which he actually does kind of do, hits a three, but he’s only a 35% three-point shooter, and he doesn’t miss. And none of them are missing. Osam Jane comes in shooting 30% from three and he hits like three of them. It’s kind of stupid. They hit 13 threes in the quarter. So, a little bit is like they just got roll. This is momentum and confidence. They got rolling. We didn’t. Aaron Wiggins hit a 27 foot three and we’re not hitting anything. the know the Knicks game is a lot of the same story to me. Like you go back and look at the open of the Knicks game when we get outscored 23 to nothing. We open the game on a very good offensive possession, but it leads to a SVE turnover. SVE gets caught too far underneath. Then we have a great possession where Lowry passes to SE in the corner. SVE misses. Then we throw an alleyoop to Lowry who got behind the def and maybe it’s a little bit of a force but it was a attack at the rim to catch them for like I like it early in the game. We’re going to go back door on you. You better be ready for it. The pass wasn’t bad. Lowry couldn’t finish. His followup gets blocked. We then run a perfect pick and roll with Keonte and Nerkach. And Nerk misses both free throws. Key then moves guys around nicely. Moves a plays a clear side pick and roll with Nerk and Nerk gets it. Nerkach misses. We’re at the 9:30 mark of the Knicks game. We’re playing at least. I mean, the coaches can tell me otherwise. I thought we’re playing really well. We’re executing offensively. We’re We’re running our stuff. Defensively, we’re actually in it. We’re playing hard defensively. There’s been It’s We’re at the 9:30 mark of the quarter. There’s actually not been a lot of scoring. It’s 5 nothing. Jaylen Brunson hits a stupid 10-ft fadeaway over Lowry. And we make our first bad play of the night, which is Keiante tries to push a pass ahead to Lowry that gets intercepted and a fast break the other way. It’s nine nothing. We play handoff game with Ace Bailey. They go under. Ace does what he’s supposed to do and he misses. He shoots the three and he misses. Misses a 23 foot fine. They run a fast break. Towns is the trailer. Nerk fouls him. Towns makes both free throws. It’s 11 nothing. We run a half decent offensive possession. It’s not quite as sharp. This is the beginning of the like sign. It’s 11 nothing. Five minutes in. We’re beginning to lose our texture. Key shoots a floater, which is not a great shot, but he actually worked the possession. It was late in the clock at that point. And he misses. And they go back the other way and on a fast break off the miss. And we’re not floor balanced. And it’s 13- nothing. We’re now pushing out of that transition. SE takes a quick three, which I really don’t hate. The Knicks are pretty good half court defense. SVE got a pretty good look. He’s a 35% three-point shooter. He misses and they come down and Miles McBride hits a three with guys drenched all over him. It’s 16- nothing. We run a really nice play and Nerk misses a two-footer. He gets caught. He doesn’t really miss it. He gets caught underneath the basket. He doesn’t have the lift and he gets blocked. And they come back the other way. Fast break. Miles Bridges scores it. It’s 18 nothing and we’re done. And I don’t really look at this and say like the effort sucks. I honestly just our guys didn’t make shots. Our guys didn’t make plays because the system and the offense is actually running and getting you know last night without Lowry we’re just not good enough honestly. Like there’s a bunch of plays where it’s like Ace making an opportunity that should have been Lowry and it’s a big deal. Ace is on the second side and Lowry’s on the front side. It really matters. But there’s a big viral cut of of Will Hardy losing his mind, screaming at the players to play harder. And I I don’t disagree with Will. I think it’s happening after the failures, though. It’s happening after we start the game. And I I watched There wasn’t something horrific when you watched the first quarter. Both those games were like, they’re not executing, they’re not running hard, they’re not playing, they’re not doing it. They lose their bearings and they lose their soul at some point in there of like which is interesting and I don’t know what that’s from. I don’t know if that’s leftover from losing of years past. This team this year doesn’t seem to have like had that zest or that failure like or had that problem. Is it is it you know is it years of losing suddenly causing this and this is the problem with what we’re going through right now? I don’t know. Or is it just natural human instinct that when you’re in New York City in Madison Square Garden and you’re up down 16 nothing, you’re being humiliated that you kind of lose your uh Yeah, maybe that. I don’t know. I would be interested your thoughts on that. All right. Trends Monday. This has always been a little interesting and last week it revealed a bunch of things and then then became storylines. We’re always kind of like one step ahead of the national story lines when we do this. It’s next on Locked on Jazz. Today’s show is brought to you in part by FanDuel. By the way, Oklahoma City, I mentioned this last night on the show. Oklahoma City has been a 10-point favorite in something like 11 straight games. Ridiculous. Uh NFL Sundays move fast. So does NFL Monday night. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. And with FanDuel, you place bets as action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment, live betting is best when the game starts to shift. A receiver gets hot. And every momentum swing, every highlight moment, live betting is best when the game starts to shift. A receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, momentum flips after a turnover, and FanDuel lets you jump on into the moment. Live spreads and money lines adjust instantly. player props update as the game heats up and you can bet the next touchdown scores, drive results, totals, and more if you keeps you locked into every snap, every drive, every possible. So, if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast, so can you. Checking the FanDuel sports book. We have the NBA Cup coming up this week as that’s why the Jazz will not play until Thursday. Um, and for NBA Cup games right now, by the way, the Thunder are a plus 130 to win it. Denver’s plus 700. Houston’s plus,000. The Knicks are plus, 1100. I am certainly convinced that there’s something wrong with Cleveland. So, we’ll see whether that turns out to be true. Um, we’ll see on the NBA Cup. Uh, I I was trying to find NBA Cup odds right now. I would assume that the NBA Cup odds are all favoring Oklahoma City. Um, the NBA Cup. Here we go. Um, is this right? Are these right? Do I have the right teams? Yes, I think I do. Um, Orlando or Miami is a one and a half point favorite over Orlando. The Knicks are a four-point favorite over Toronto. And then Oklahoma City is a 15 and a half point favorite against Phoenix. And the Lakers are a four and a half point favorite against San Antonio for the Tuesday and Wednesday NBA Cup games. Thanks so much for making locked on jazz your first listen of the day. everydayer.comlocked uh excuse me lockdownpodcast everydayer lockdownpodcast.com everydayer be the first to sign up. Super excited. Um and if you have well we’ll launch this today your Spotify wrapped. Don’t do it yet. you have your Spotify wrapped and we’re one of your favorites, we’re going to give you a month free. I’ll tell you the details on that tomorrow. Um, so that’s that’s coming your direction. The Spotify wrapped, if you have a if you have uh we’ll give you a month free. All right, let’s do trends Monday. We always do this first. We look at the last two weeks and then or last 10 games and then we look at the last two weeks. Uh we do this every single Monday on the show. Uh hopefully gives you good little breakdown of what’s taking place and Oklahoma City is the best in the NBA over the last 10 games. Here’s the stunner. Boston’s the second best differential. They’re 8-2. They seem to have kind of figured out what they’re doing without Jason Tatum. It’s pretty awesome. Knicks are third, Houston’s fourth, and Orlando’s fifth. And then Fron Vagner went out tonight. Sixth is Memphis, who we will play next. They are seven and three in their last 10. The 10 five teams of the bottom Washington, Utah, Chicago, they started so well. Sacramento, New Orleans, and the Clippers are the bottom teams. The off best offensive team in the NBA over last 10 games is the Boston Celtics. They are, excuse me, they are shooting at effective field goal percentage of 61%. Denver’s at 62% effective field goal percentage. They’re the number two offense. Knicks are three, Lakers are four. That’s pretty much since LeBron’s come back. Thunder five and the Spurs interesting without Wendy are sixth offensively. The teams are having a hard time scoring. Chicago suddenly cannot score. They are the worst offensive team in the league over the last two weeks. Then Sacramento, Washington. This is what’s so interesting about Sacramento. Doug Christie just keeps talking defense, defense, defense. They actually can’t score. Washington, Philadelphia, Portland, and then the Warriors who are four and six in the last 10. Jonathan Kamingo was dnped last night. if you didn’t catch that one uh or if you caught that one. Defensively, the best team in the league over the last 10 games is Oklahoma City. They’re just breaking the code. Houston, Miami, then Golden State, and Memphis. So, Memphis really playing well defensively to get where they are. Orlando getting their back. The teams are the worst defensive team in the league over the last 10 games is the Jazz followed by the Nuggets, the Pelicans, the Bulls, the Clippers, and the Bucks. Interesting to see the Bucks there. The bottom team’s not all that surprising. and the Jazz with the worst defensive team in the NBA over the last 10 games to some extent. The Walker Kler thing wearing out. Some things just I think we’re we’re wearing out a little bit. I just don’t know entirely why. Um over the last two weeks, the best team in the NBA is New York with a 17.1 differential, then Oklahoma City, then Houston, then Boston, then Golden State, but a big drop. They’re double digits by New York, Oklahoma City, Houston, and Boston. And Golden State is next in Orlando after that. the top six teams in the NBA over the last two weeks. The worst team in the league over the last two weeks in the is Utah Jazz. We’ve lost our last two units by a million. Washington, Chicago, Phoenix, worth keeping an eye on. Clippers and Milwaukee. So, the eye openeners here kind of even if we go back to that last little stretch, Boston how well they’re the story lines to take out of the trends. Boston how well they’re playing offensively, what they’re doing there. Defining Milwaukee and how much they’re actually sliding. Phoenix as well and Chicago with the big slide um on that. The defensive end over the last 10 games, Oklahoma City and Golden State are nip and tuck with Orlando at three, Houston at four, and then Philadelphia a big drop, but Philadelphia at five and New York at six. Memphis was the other story line I would say out of these recent trends. They’ll be our next team of playing, but that Memphis over the last two weeks and the last 10 games seems to be about in the top 10 of teams. Washington is 30th. Utah is 29th. Denver is 28th defensively. This is defense. Washington 30. Utah 29th. Denver 28. Lakers 27. So since LeBron’s come back, the defense really slipping. He hadn’t played every game either. New Orleans and then San Antonio without Wendy 25th defensively. That’s a little eye opening. I figure we probably should add this to it. The fact of the matter is this is a huge part of our storyline and that is where are we on our draft pick? So, as of right now, the Jazz have slid back into the eighth spot in draft position, which would mean we keep our pick. Charlotte, and the win total is the thing to watch here. Charlotte has won, we have won eight games. Dallas is now ahead of us with nine. Portland’s ahead of us with nine, and Chicago’s ahead of us with nine, but Chicago’s lost seven in a row. And so on that trends Monday, the thing to watch there, it’s a little unnerving, is keep an eye on Chicago. Um, we have won eight games. Charlotte has won seven. Brooklyn six, Sacramento six, the Clippers six, Indiana five, Washington and New Orleans three. I don’t know how far we end up dropping here or how few wins we get along the way, but it’s probably worth now 20 games or 60 games to play to start watching this because it’s that actually important for our franchise. So, we have slipped back into eighth in draft position. Uh, and we’ll be any wins by Charlotte, Brooklyn, Sacramento, or the Clippers would be much appreciated. Indiana, I don’t think we can catch Washington, New Orleans. I don’t think we’ll ever catch Brooklyn. The concern here really is I don’t know that we can slide behind Charlotte, Brooklyn, Sacramento, Indiana, Washington, New Orleans. The Clippers are the only team in there. They don’t have their pick that’s incentivized to win. I do not entirely know that we can slide behind the others. Maybe Charlotte, but and so we’re going to be sitting at seven, which is a nerve-wracking spot, nor is it really where you want to be in regards to getting um a high-end draft pick. So, that is a little bit of an issue. Uh and we’ll keep an eye on those on trends Monday. That is Locked on Jazz. Thank you very much for tuning in today’s show. Tomorrow we’ll look at games 11 through 20 on the program and see who’s made steps. We’ll rank our top seven youngsters and where they rank. I want your thoughts on that as well. If you want to follow me on socials, you can follow, by the way, subscribe and follow the program on whatever podcast app or YouTube so you get notified of the next episodes. You want to follow me on socials, it’s DLock09. I try to give you some good stuff there as well. The new everyday program is out. I’ll be moving most of my contacts and my texting and my Twitter and all my stuff over to the all accessess club on the everydayer club uh for all the all accessess exclusive members on that that is at lockedonpodcast.com everydayer for the all accessess members for $15 a month or $150 a year direct oneonone communication leaf to leans exclusive draft coverage both video breakdowns players extra podcast all access extra episodes and breakdowns daily newsletter into your inbox 15% off the exclusive lockown on podcast uh merch store where nobody else gets access to it. All access to the Discord ad free as well. Huge package of stuff. 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Utah Jazz rookie Walter Clayton Jr. surges ahead in the rotation, raising hopes for the team’s youth movement. Is Clayton the next breakout star in Salt Lake City? David Locke breaks down Clayton’s electrifying stretch, spotlighting his sharp shooting, growing confidence, and the Jazz’s commitment to developing young talent like Keyonte George and Lauri Markkanen.

Key topics include Utah’s recent struggles against NBA Finals contenders, the evolution of key prospects such as Brice Sensabaugh and Taylor Hendricks, and whether the Jazz’s mix of highlighted rookies is ready for a bigger role. David Locke explores Will Hardy’s coaching adjustments, defensive trends, and the critical importance of player development in a challenging season. Dive deep into game recaps, rookie “haze,” and roster analysis as Utah chases lottery odds and future success.

0:00: Walt Clayton emerging as player
13:00: Anatomy of blowouts – poor starts to OKC and NYK
27:00 Trends Monday

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