Trey Lyles Becoming A Premier Rookie

Trey Lyles was drafted as a project but he’s quickly developed into a major player. Did the Utah Jazz get yet another draft steal?

Fourth.

From the months between October and December, New York Knicks rookie Kristaps Porzingis had the fourth-highest jersey sales in the entire league. In front of major big-time players like Kevin Durant and right in between the top five with Stephen Curry, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant.

Even though Bryant is already knee deep on his retirement tour, one Utah Jazz rookie shares the same moniker as one of his idols. Rookie power forward Trey Lyles, who goes by TreyMambaLyles on Twitter, might not be the second coming of Bryant as a player, but he’s well on his way to creating his own path within the NBA.

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With the injuries to Derrick Favors, and previously to Rudy Gobert, Lyles was asked to step up his play and hold the fort down on the front line.

Only 27 starts later and fans, management and players alike all realize that Lyles being thrust into the starting lineup was the right move. People are now starting to see why it looks like Utah has found another steal from the draft.

The numbers don’t do much justice, because Lyles averages five points and 4.2 rebounds per game, but he’s already on his way to becoming one of the better rookies in this year’s class and Utah’s got yet another big-time future big on their roster.

What we’ve seen this past month of January from Lyles only raises the question, how is Utah going to find a way for him to get more playing time? In the month of January Lyles is averaging 9.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in only 29.5 minutes per game. He’s also shooting 50 percent from the floor.

Defense Too, Or Just a Scorer?

For any rookie, it’s difficult to get thrust into the starting lineup.

Rookies have no clue what to expect defensively when it comes to guarding their assignment and are still learning how to properly rotate on defense. The speed of the athletes in the league are breathtaking and that’s why early on it wasn’t a surprise that we didn’t see much Lyles on the court because defensively he couldn’t compete.

For Utah, a team that hangs their hat on attempting to play championship-level defense, Lyles had to work on his body, as well as his footwork, if he wanted to stay on the floor. Thankfully, since being put in the starting lineup, Lyles hasn’t slacked off defensively and Utah hasn’t missed a beat because of it.

In fact, because Lyles has been so adept at playing defense, he’s seen some of the tougher assignments in the league, like when he had to guard Carmelo Anthony earlier in the week.

Guarding Anthony would be a daunting task for most players in the league and they would have to exert most of their defensively to make sure he doesn’t go off for a big game. The only problem is that leaves a player often times out of sync offensively because of having to deal with a player like Anthony most of the game.

When situations like that arise, what are you doing when things aren’t going your way offensively?

When the rim has a lid on it, what are you doing as a player to ensure that your team wins? When a person can legitimately answer that question that’s when you know that you’ve found a good player.The silver lining about throwing Lyles to the wolves early in his career was that we got to see how he impacts a game when he’s not scoring.

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Just looking at the example like when he played against the Charlotte Hornets, Lyles had a bad shooting night but finished with eight rebounds and four assists.

Utah’s Biggest Need

Just like the rookie Porzingis in New York, Lyles is a prototypical stretch 4. That’s why it was very interesting to see the two rookies go against each other, because their games are so similar.

As for Porzingis and his Knicks, they got to see some of the arsenals from Lyles repertoire. The one ability that everyone seems to forget when it comes to Lyles is that he’s able to actually shoot fairly well. Lyles has the ability to create space for his teammates because he’s got a decent jump shot that extends to the three-point line.

Right now Lyles leads Utah in three-point shooting percentage, connecting on 47.5 percent of his attempts.

For a team like Utah that doesn’t score a lot of points and that doesn’t shoot a lot of threes, it’s good to have someone who can get their own buckets. It’s also good because it takes some of the scoring load off of Gordon Hayward‘s hands. Utah highly valued Lyles out of the draft because management knew that they could have something serious on their hands if he develops.

Early in the beginning of the year, Lyles was timid and shy, but that was expected. He wouldn’t often look for his shot and would get caught up with deferring to his teammates. Now, it’s the complete opposite and you can see the confidence that he’s playing with.

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If Utah can utilize his complete game it’s going to leave a lot of questions about what’s going to happen to one of their other two big men because Lyles is only 20 years old and he looks like a player who should be in the starting lineup for the next decade.