The Jazz gave their summer league roster the day off on July 5. Darryn Peterson drove to the practice facility anyway and asked Will Hardy to watch film with him. ESPN reported that the two went through his debut clip by clip, most of it on defense. At one point, Hardy used the word "Raven," Jazz shorthand for defending with arms extended, a tribute to Ed Reed. Peterson was five years old when Reed played his last down. He did not know who his coach was talking about.
The debut they were reviewing came the night before, July 4, against Atlanta at the Huntsman Center. Peterson scored 28 on 11-of-21 shooting, hit four threes, and made the go-ahead shot in overtime of a 103-102 win. He also turned it over eight times. Two nights later, against Memphis, he had 25 points and 12 assists, both game highs. The passing was supposed to be the weak part. At Kansas, he averaged 20.2 points but only 1.6 assists, and scouts told HoopsHype in May that he hadn't facilitated well, though some blamed a freshman season chopped up by cramping episodes he later traced to heavy creatine use. Fourteen assists in two games did more for his stock than the 53 points.
Then Las Vegas, and the game everyone had circled. The Wizards took AJ Dybantsa first overall, one pick before Utah took Peterson. Peterson beat Dybantsa head-to-head in high school and hit the game-winner. Dybantsa played his only college season in Provo. Asked about the matchup, Peterson told the Deseret News he thought of it as Utah versus Washington. On Thursday, Dybantsa scored 27 in a 92-88 Wizards win. Peterson shot 6-of-18 for 24 points and picked up nine fouls. Summer league allows ten. He was aware: "It was a physical game, so I was going out with 9."
Around the league, two weeks of summer league have been enough. ESPN's Tim MacMahon said on the Hoop Collective podcast that people he talks to see scoring-title potential. Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman compared him to Anthony Edwards. Kendrick Perkins went on ESPN before the draft and set the range at Bradley Beal on the low end, Kobe Bryant on the high end. The comp scouts most often give is Devin Booker. The betting public has gone further. Cameron Boozer, the Wooden Award winner from Memphis, took third and opened as the Rookie of the Year favorite at FanDuel at +240, with Peterson at +400. After the Salt Lake City games, PrizePicks users flipped the order, making Peterson the outright favorite.
Rookie of the Year is a usage award. The last nine winners were top-four picks who got the ball, and Boozer walks into a Memphis rebuild that will hand it to him. Peterson walks into a locker room where Keyonte George just averaged 23.6 points and 6.1 assists, where Lauri Markkanen is on a max contract, where Jaren Jackson Jr. arrived at the deadline on a near-max of his own, and where Ace Bailey, a fifth overall pick, is entering year two.
George is extension-eligible this summer, and ESPN's reporting says the Jazz want to see him build on the breakout before paying him like a franchise guard, which means George has every incentive to keep the ball too. Four players need touches. One of them is a rookie whose coach has never started a rookie on opening night. The sportsbooks say Peterson is the most likely rookie in America to put up big numbers. The roster lists him as Utah's fourth option in October. Both cannot be true.
Peterson himself has noticed what the on-ball role feels like. He played off the ball at Kansas, a shooting guard in someone else's offense. In summer league, the Jazz have made him the primary initiator, and he told reporters in Las Vegas, "I was off [the ball] a ton, so I feel like myself again." That is the version of Peterson that the scouts are raving about, and the sportsbooks are pricing. It is also the version that disappears if the October rotation slots him next to George as a spot-up option.
The Jazz spent July making the squeeze tighter, on purpose. On July 1, they sign-and-traded Walker Kessler to the Lakers for unprotected firsts in 2031 and 2033 and swaps in 2028 and 2030, after Kessler turned down roughly $140 million over five years to stay. CBS Sports graded Utah's side of the deal as playing it perfectly. It probably was. But read it with the extension math, and a pattern emerges: the front office is protecting cap room and future picks while the scoring hierarchy sorts itself out on the floor. Jusuf Nurkić and Kyle Filipowski will hold down the center spot. Nobody in the building will call next season a tryout for the offense's pecking order. Next season is a tryout for the offense's pecking order.
The stakes attached to it are not in question. "Obviously, our expectation is to get to the postseason," George said in April. Hardy and Austin Ainge ducked the same question. Last year's 22-60 was more of a medical file than a record. Markkanen missed 40 games, Kessler played five, and Jackson played three as a Jazzman. Healthy, this team is expected to find something like 15 more wins and a play-in spot at minimum.
Whether Peterson forces the issue faster than the depth chart intends is the thing worth watching between now and April. The Jazz play the Clippers in Las Vegas on Sunday. The season opens on October 30.
