{"id":605425,"date":"2026-02-16T00:40:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605425\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T00:40:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:40:18","slug":"remembering-a-telling-conversation-with-jaren-jackson-jr-from-2022-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/605425\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering a telling conversation with Jaren Jackson Jr. from 2022 \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was first published as the Jazz Insiders<\/a> newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Friday. <\/p>\n

Today, I thought I\u2019d share a unique memory of a conversation I had with Jaren Jackson Jr. a few years ago.<\/p>\n

Back in April 2022, the Utah Jazz played against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Jazz ended up winning the game in overtime, and honestly, I don\u2019t remember a lot about the game itself other than one particular thing.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies, who finished that season with the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, were one of the few top-seeded teams that were really intentional about not complaining to the officials. At one point during the game, I saw a couple of players pleading to and complaining about a foul call, and Jackson rushed over and put his arms around the players and took them away from the official.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a situation where the complaining players were being aggressive and risking being assessed a technical foul \u2014 it was just your run-of-the-mill jawing at the officials. I remember thinking that this was a little strange and just unlike so many of the other players and teams in the league.<\/p>\n

After the game, I was able to make it over to the Grizzlies locker room in time to ask Jackson about the interaction during the game and his thoughts about complaining to the officials.<\/p>\n

He told me that he always thought that allowing himself to get frustrated about calls he disagreed with was wasted emotion. In the moments where he felt like he\u2019d been wronged by an official or felt like an official missed something, there was almost always something more important to worry about than saying something to a referee.<\/p>\n

He said as the Grizzlies started to work toward being a contending team, it became a part of their identity. If other teams were going to waste their breath on the officiating staff, then they would use those moments to gain an advantage or focus their energy on something that could impact the game in a positive way.<\/p>\n

When he had walked over to the players that were complaining that night, he quickly told them to refocus on the team. He mentioned that his \u201cbrothers\u201d (teammates) just needed to be reminded that the \u201cfamily\u201d required their focus rather than anyone else.<\/p>\n

Since then, I\u2019ve thought fondly about that brief conversation with Jackson every time I\u2019ve watched him play. I think it says a lot about the kind of teammate and the kind of player Jackson wants to be as well as how much he values every moment of a game and sees that there are ways to maximize focus and energy, even when the clock is stopped.<\/p>\n

New with the JazzFrom the archivesExtra pointsAce Bailey named as replacement on All-Star Rising Stars team (Deseret News<\/a>)The Jazz landed a two-time All-Star. Here\u2019s what it signals (Deseret News<\/a>)The NBA fined the Jazz for benching stars. What Ryan Smith said about it (Deseret News<\/a>)What Will Hardy said about Jazz getting fined by the NBA for sitting stars (Deseret News<\/a>)Around the leagueUp nextFeb. 20 | 5 p.m. MST | Utah Jazz @ Memphis Grizzlies | KJZZFeb. 23 | 7:30 p.m. MST | Utah Jazz @ Houston Rockets | PeacockFeb. 26 | 7 p.m. MST | Utah Jazz vs. New Orleans Pelicans | KJZZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article was first published as the Jazz Insiders newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,423,6,1111,722,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-605425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jazz","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-news-feed-local","12":"tag-newsletters","13":"tag-utah","14":"tag-utah-jazz","15":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116077528668236363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605425","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=605425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}