Keyonte George was easily one of the most underrated players in the NBA last season. Surrounded by a cast of teammates that was pared down week after week, George continued to put up fantastic numbers as the most consistent playmaker for the season. Never forget the list of players like Kennedy Chandler, Walter Clayton, Andersson Garcia, Taylor Hendricks, John Konchar, Bez Mbeng, Oscar Tshiebwe, and Vince Williams, among others. Some were better than others, but regardless of who was on the floor, George finished the season with a stat line of 23.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 6.1 assists. George did this while shooting 37.1% from three and 45.6% from the field. But the most exciting part of Keyonte George’s season was what he did to start the season with the best of the Utah roster as the main point guard.
In George’s first five games, he averaged 9.2 assists per game. It was an interesting lineup, with Kyle Filipowski starting at the 4. In his first eight games, he averaged 7.9 assists, and Taylor Hendricks was brought into the starting lineup. But another change to the rotation looks like it altered his play even more. It was in game 8 that Utah brought Isaiah Collier into the lineup. With Collier taking the role of point guard while on the floor, George’s assist totals dropped, but surprisingly not as much as you might expect. For the rest of the season, George averaged 5.8 assists per game. That is pretty impressive, considering he’s playing with all the different players Utah rolled out.
The biggest story for George was the leap he made last season. There are real reasons to think that George will take another leap next year, even a big leap. In that 8-game stretch to start the season, George shot 26.1% from three and 42.1% from the field, for 38.1% from three and 46.2% from the field. He got better as the year went on in a real way. With each game, he became more and more the focal point of the offense and the player opposing defenses focused on. Is that 38% from three and 46% from the field the floor for George next season? Possibly.
It also wasn’t empty statistics. Going back to the combination of George and Collier, I wanted to check out the data from the team at NBA Wowy, who do lineup data that removes garbage time. Here’s how the combination of Keyonte George and Isaiah Collier did.
The most interesting part of the data is how good Utah’s offense was with Keyonte George leading the way. George led the Utah offense to be 4.2 points per 100 possessions better as the primary playmaker without Isaiah Collier on the floor, including a 120.4 offensive rating. For reference, and this is extremely noisy, and I’m not sure I even trust it, or I’m reading this right, but the Knicks had a league-best 119.9 offensive rating last season, according to NBA.com. Once again, that’s with garbage time removed, and it’s very parceled minutes, but that’s an incredible sign for Keyonte George next season for what he can do.
What happens with George sharing the floor with Darryn Peterson instead of Isaiah Collier? Peterson can play both off and on the ball and will shoot it at a high clip. Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. are all-star-caliber players who will finish plays at a high level. There’s also no reason to think that Ace Bailey doesn’t take some sort of leap next year as well. What this all tells me is that Keyonte George needs to be the player from those first 8 games last season. George could be a revelation as the point guard next year and could average anywhere from 8-10 assists per game. If anything, we should probably expect something close to that. If he can combine that with the improved percentages we saw from him, we may have a very special player who will demand a big contract. And Utah would also be smart to give it to him, especially if he can prove to be better defensively. But that’s another story for another day.
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