![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.slcdunk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/145\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-03-093557.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhen comparing George directly to Herro\u2019s 2021-2022 season you\u2019ll see that he\u2019s a better scorer, he\u2019s more efficient at all three levels, he\u2019s more impactful while he\u2019s on the court, and even though it still isn\u2019t as great as I would like it to be he\u2019s a better defender as well. The only metric that Herro outperformed George in was the rebounding department, and while that is obviously very important in the game of basketball, having Lauri and Walker will more than make up for it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s very difficult to compare eras of basketball even when they\u2019re that close in range. Herro was an on-ball creator 29% of the time which was in the 92nd percentile in the league, while Keyonte was an on-ball creator 36% of the time but it was only in the 78th percentile. Even in four years the game has changed so much but the fact remains the same: Keyonte George has All-Star written all over him.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t sit there and tell me that had we won a couple more games this year that 23.6\/3.7\/6.1 a night wouldn\u2019t have been enough to sway some votes our way. Unfortunately, the way the All-Star voting is set up currently, we were kind of behind the 8-Ball. As far as the voting is concerned 50% of the vote comes from the fans and 25% of the vote comes from the media. Being a small market doesn\u2019t exactly help us in that case. Most of the NBA fans would be considered causals; someone who doesn\u2019t tune in until the Christmas Day games, only watches the weekly ESPN games, and is really only familiar with the biggest stars of the game. The media, on the other hand, have proven time and time again to be casuals because Stephen A. Smith has a vote and I don\u2019t think he could name more than 4 Jazz players.<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t really anything we can do about being a smaller market, but we can be at the forefront of people\u2019s minds when it comes to the NBA and that\u2019s by taking the leap that we all expect, and that starts with Keyonte and Co. I will maintain until the day I die that Keyonte was good enough to be an All-Star this year, but with a healthy team next year I think that he could be even more impactful and more efficient. Assuming that everyone is at full strength it\u2019s going to be very difficult for the defense to chose between George, Markkanen, and JJJ. George will have more offensive weapons at his disposal so his playmaking numbers will only go up. With that extra offensive firepower on the court he won\u2019t be asked to create everything for the team and he won\u2019t suffer the FG% drop. With the added defensive presence of Jaren Jackson Jr. and the (again hopefully) returning Walker Kessler he won\u2019t be viewed as a traffic cone, for the most part. As long as we win more games and George can capitalize on last season I think that he\u2019ll become undeniable to the NBA fandom at large and we\u2019ll finally have an All-Star again.<\/p>\n
Is it lofty? Yes. Is it attainable? Also yes. I\u2019m not a guy who just wishes for things without any real parameters, so here are my official hopes and predictions for Keyonte George and the team next year:<\/p>\n
Keyonte averages 26 points and 7 assists a night with a 62%+ TS%The Jazz win 37-39 gamesJazz compete for a Play-In spotSteal the 8th seedSweep the Thunder in the First RoundDominate the Timberwolves in the Second RoundBeat the Spurs so bad in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals that they forfeit Games 2-4Dismantle the Knicks in the 2027 NBA FinalsHoist the Larry O\u2019Brien for the first time ever<\/p>\n
I think I might have gotten carried away at the end there, but what do you think Keyonte can accomplish next year? Do you think that he AND Lauri could be All-Stars? Sound off in the comments!<\/p>\n
Be kind. Tell somebody that you love them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re in the thick of the playoffs now and without our Jazzmen to root for it has me…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,37332,295,189,3881,6],"class_list":["post-724687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami-heat","tag-basketball","tag-heat","tag-jazz-roster","tag-miami","tag-miami-heat","tag-miamiheat","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116511293667775967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724687","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=724687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}