Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
It was not long ago that the Utah Jazz hired Karl Malone to be a player consultant to power forward Derrick Favors and center Enes Kanter. The Jazz have made another move that involves former great John Stockton.
Stockton will mentor rookie point guard Trey Burke and second-year shooting guard Alec Burks in an effort to improve their skills right out of the gate. Burke and Burks have a realistic chance to become dominant players in the NBA. More importantly, they make up a backcourt that could potentially lead the Jazz to greatness in the ensuing years.
“Alec [Burks] and Trey [Burke] are both actually working with John [Stockton],” Jazz president Randy Rigby said, according to The Big Show with Spence Checketts & Gordon Monson. “They were able to get up this week and work with John, which again shows you the commitment we have from the Karl Malone’s, the John Stockton’s, the Jerry Sloan’s of helping us build this new team, this young team.
“We’ve been really happy with the commitment of John to go and really support us in helping these young players not only on the floor, teaching them some tricks of the trade, but also more the philosophy and what it means, the opportunity to be playing for the Utah Jazz and playing in the NBA, and some things that they can do mentally as well as physically to become a better basketball player.”
Obviously, fans in Utah have to be ecstatic that the people responsible for back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in the 1990s will be spending their time improving the new squad of players.
