Random Utah Jazz Player Of The Week: Eric Maynor
It’s been well documented by sports talk shows, social media and your office buddy hovering over your desk at work that the NBA playoffs have been a ton of fun this year.
The physicality is up and so is the drama, producing must watch hoops on a near nightly basis.
It’s been cool to see, but for fans of teams who didn’t make the postseason party, it feels a lot like standing at the back of the line of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad” as the coaster rips over your head and the sign reads “90 minute wait”.
You can appreciate the atmosphere, the speed, the power, the joy, but you aren’t quite enjoying it to the fullest.
I know I can’t be the only Jazz fan who has thought to myself “Geez this is cool, I wish the Jazz were in the playoffs this year.”
Yet alas, those moments may still be years away, so while the big boys ride the cool coaster of playoff power, Utah has to make due with the kiddie ride across the street.
With the draft lottery still 11 days away, and the draft itself just under 2 months away, Jazz fans have to find other Jazz related ways to quench their thirst for Mountain Basketball.
What better way to do that than riding the ever-present wave that is nostalgia?
Why worry about the present or anticipate the future when you can just become consumed with the past?
So in an attempt to make another long offseason in Salt Lake City go a bit faster, I present to you the “Random Jazz Player of The Week.”
Today’s featured athlete is Eric Maynor.
I did say random, so I hope you weren’t expecting Jazz staples like Stockton, Malone, Williams, Mitchell or Brandon Rush.
Maynor was a blink and you miss it type of player for how short his stint was in Utah.
Not too different than a player on a handful of ten-day contracts or a two-way player, Maynor only appeared 26 times as a member of the Jazz, but unlike those types of players, Maynor was hand selected by Utah with the 20th overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft.
Eric was coming fresh off a 4 year career at Virginia Commonwealth University, better known as the VCU Rams, where he had burst onto the scene his senior season.
Maynor wasn’t just a part of the Rams during that 08-09 season, he WAS the Rams, where he became the schools all time leader in made free throws, assists and points, records he still holds to this day.
VCU went as Maynor did, and his 22.4 points and 6.2 assists a night that year took the Rams to a Colonial conference title and a march madness berth.
There was no Cinderella run to be had as the #11 Rams fell to a #6 UCLA Bruins back court featuring Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday, 65-64, after Maynor’s game winning attempt missed.
Either way it was an impressive run and the Colonial conference player of the year’s stock would rise significantly In the upcoming 2009 draft.
The Utah Jazz at the time were fresh off a 48 win season, only good enough for the 8th seed in a crowded Western Conference, and had been bounced in only 5 games by the eventual champion, Los Angeles Lakers.
The Jazz had Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer mixing with Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur in the starting lineup while Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver came off the bench.
It was an impressive roster and one Jazz fans still think of fondly but one of their glaring weaknesses in that 07-08 year was scoring guard play behind Williams.
The team had rotated between veteran Brevin Knight and Utah Valley standout, Ronnie Price, neither of which averaged more than 15 minutes a night and combined for 6.4 points a contest on the season.
Knight would retire at the end of the season, and Utah would target Maynor with their only first round selection at #20 overall to spell Deron Williams at times and compliment the high-flying defensive minded Price.
They would also sign undrafted free agent, Wesley Matthews, but that’s a story for a different day.
The ability to win, put up points and still patiently run an offense made him seem like a great fit under Jerry Sloan, not to mention he seemed like a player who’s experience made him an option to “play now”.
The first 7 games of his rookie season saw Maynor collect two DNP’s and barely more than ten total minutes played, not a surprise for a rookie in Sloan’s system.
9 games into the season, Deron Williams would be absent for a short spell, and that thrust Maynor into the starting lineup.
This meant his first major minutes in the NBA were starter minutes as he went from hardly playing to going for almost 36 minutes in a win over Philadelphia and almost 41 minutes in a narrow loss in Cleveland.
In Maynor’s first ever career start he scored 13 points and had 11 assists for a double-double.
In the Cleveland game, Maynor went 9/16 from the field scoring 24 points, more than any player on the floor not named Carlos Boozer who had 25.
Yes, That includes LeBron.
Despite not starting again while in Utah those starting performances would elevate Maynor into the rotation where he would average 14.2 minutes the next 18 games.
His scoring output wasn’t quite as anticipated, shooting 35 percent from the field and 21 percent from deep for 4.6 points a night, but his 61 assists (3.4 a game) to only 19 turnovers was a promising sign if he could get his shot ironed out.
That opportunity never came as Eric Maynor was shipped away to Oklahoma City alongside an injured Matt Harpring in exchange for the draft rights to Peter Fehse.
Then Jazz GM Kevin O’Connor cited it as a “difficult decision” but admitted it was to “greatly help reduce our luxury tax responsibility.”
He also noted “proven backup” Ronnie Price as another reason in being able to make Maynor the prize in the Harpring contract swap.
And just like that, Eric Maynor’s Jazz career was over as soon as it started with the rookie guard appearing in 26 games averaging 5.2 points and 3.1 assist while shooting at a 39 and 21 percent clip from the field and beyond the arc.
Maynor would fade out of the NBA in about 5 years time, bouncing between OKC, Portland, Washington and Philadelphia with the 2013-14 season being his last.
His career averages were 4.3 PPG, 2.8 Assists, 1.3 boards, while averaging 39 percent shooting from the field and becoming a 35 percent three point shooter.
Maynor would appear in 241 more NBA games, and would never start another, making his only career starts the 2 he had his rookie year in Utah.
Ironically enough his career high remains the 24 points he hung on Cleveland as a member of the Jazz.
There’s your random Jazz player of the day, and we hoped you enjoyed the jaunt down memory lane.
Don’t forget to share with your friends all the cool things you learned about random Jazz history, which will make you seem totally unique and interesting and not at all weird or awkward.
Until next time!