Former Utah Jazz Guard Earns G-League Honors

Every fan has been there.

Sitting with your buddy, your talking sports as you tend to do every morning at 9:30 AM and one of you throws out a random player of yesteryear.

It spirals into a full on “remember this guy” conversation where you try to outdo each other with obscure players throughout a franchise’s history.

The Utah Jazz have plenty of random players you can go with from Andris Biedrins to Othyus Jeffers.

Every so often, one of these players remerges among Jazz nation, and today’s player is none other than Shaq Harrison.

Shaq Harrison has only appeared in 44 NBA games since 2020 including 17 appearances for the Jazz that season, but has been hanging around in the G-league working towards another shot in the association.

An undrafted free agent in 2016 out of Tulsa, Harrison would be tabbed as a defensive perimeter stopper during his tenure in Chicago where he appeared in 116 games with 21 starts.

That defensive mentality still rings true as Harrison was named the G-Leagues defensive player of the year today:

At nearly three steals a game, Shaq has also been putting up averages of 15.1 PPG and 6.6 Assists for the South Bay Lakers.

Here he is blocking current Jazz two-way player Micah Potter amongst other things in his defensive highlight reel:

Harrison was signed by Utah to add a little punch to the backcourt defense after Chicago didn’t extend a qualifying offer in the year of 2020.

Added as a bit off extra insurance behind Mike Conley and Donovan Mitchell, and coming off a finish to the season that saw him put up 11.6 points on 38.1 percent shooting from downtown, it was seen as a sneaky signing for a Jazz team with title aspirations.

Instead, the “under the radar” move stayed well below, as Harrison was cut 31 games into the season, appearing 17 times averaging 1 PPG, 0.5 assists and only making six shots in his Jazz tenure.

He attempted two threes and missed both.

Do you remember Harrison’s tenure in Utah? We certainly do, and we congratulate Harrison on his accomplishments and hope to see him follow in Kris Dunn’s footsteps back to the NBA on a regular basis.

What? We don’t have a championship, let us celebrate what we can.