{"id":558692,"date":"2026-01-24T22:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/558692\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:57:27","slug":"ex-suns-center-jusuf-nurkic-makes-history-with-utah-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/558692\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Suns center Jusuf Nurkic makes history with Utah Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Phoenix Suns<\/a> starting big Jusuf Nurkic joined a select group, matching “Pistol” Pete Maravich in the Utah Jazz<\/a> record books when he recorded his second straight triple-double on Thursday, Jan. 22.<\/p>\n

Maravich accomplished the feat in 1975.<\/p>\n

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Nurkic had 16 points, 18 rebounds and 10 assists in Utah’s home victory over Minnesota on Jan. 20. He followed that with 17-11-14 in a 126-109 home loss to San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Not even Jazz legends Karl Malone and John Stockton were able to post back-to-back triple-doubles during their 18 and 19 years playing for the team, respectively.<\/p>\n

Typically self-effacing, Nurkic said the accomplishment “doesn’t really matter (because) we lost the game.”<\/p>\n

Teammates and coaches have been quick to recognize his impact, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe screens his (butt) off, he talks, he\u2019s tough on the defensive end, he\u2019s gonna rebound, gonna do all the dirty work for us,\u201d Keyonte George said in a (Salt Lake City) Deseret News story following the Jan. 20 game. \u201cSo just to see the skill come out \u2014 the passing ability … making shots, touch around the basket \u2014 I think that\u2019s big time for Nurk.<\/p>\n

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Jazz coach Will Hardy said Nurkic has drawn a wave of support from the Utah fan base.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s helping our offense function in an unbelievable way,” Hardy said. “… It\u2019s good to see the fans embrace Nurk. He loves it here. We love him. He deserves the love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nurkic, in his 12th season, was averaging 11.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.3 steals entering action on Saturday, Jan. 24.<\/p>\n

He’s in his first season for the rebuilding Jazz (15-30) and is the team’s leader in rebounds and steals, starting in 30 of his 35 appearances.<\/p>\n

During Nurkic’s two seasons in Phoenix, he started in 99 of 101 games alongside the Suns’ former Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. Nurkic put up 10.3 points and 10.6 rebounds for Phoenix.<\/p>\n

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In early January 2025, Nurkic was benched and later said he and coach Mike Budenholzer hadn’t communicated in two months<\/a>. Then, at the trade deadline a few weeks later, the Suns traded Nurkic and a 2026 first-round pick to Charlotte for Vasa Micic, Cody Martin and a 2026 second-round selection. Nurkic was traded from Charlotte to Utah for Collin Sexton last offseason.<\/p>\n

Nurkic praised the Jazz<\/a> at the start of this season for how they \u201ccare about players and (do) a lot of small stuff to make you feel comfortable.”<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Former Suns center Nurkic makes history for Jazz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Phoenix Suns starting big Jusuf Nurkic joined a select group, matching “Pistol” Pete Maravich in the Utah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,3086,14224,1585,2292,423,5088,938,955,307,6,21104,472,969,422,427,3972],"class_list":["post-558692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-utah-jazz","tag-basketball","tag-bradley-beal","tag-cody-martin","tag-collin-sexton","tag-devin-booker","tag-jazz","tag-jusuf-nurkic","tag-kevin-durant","tag-keyonte-george","tag-minnesota","tag-nba","tag-pete-maravich","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-san-antonio","tag-utah","tag-utah-jazz","tag-utahjazz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115952552758826001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}