Former KU standout Ochai Agbaji has highlight-reel slam, double-double for Utah Jazz

Ochai Agbaji once again was featured as Utah’s No. 1 scoring option during the Jazz’s third and final game of the Salt Lake City NBA Summer League on Thursday night.

Agbaji, a 6-foot-5, 23-year-old University of Kansas and Oak Park High School graduate who is beginning his second season in the NBA, scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in Utah’s 98-83 victory over Memphis. It was the Jazz’s only win against two losses in the Salt Lake City League.

Agbaji — he played 30 minutes against the Grizzlies Thursday — hit 8 of 20 shots and was 5 of 13 from three with four assists and four turnovers en route to his double double.

He had scored 18 points on 6-of-17 shooting (4-of-8 from three) with five rebounds in Wednesday’s 104-94 loss to Philadelphia. Agbaji scored 17 points on 7-of-19 shooting (3-of-8 threes) with nine rebounds in Monday’s 95-85 loss to Oklahoma City.

It all added up to Agbaji scoring 57 points on 21-of-56 shooting in the three games. That’s 19.0 points a game on 37.5% shooting and 41.4% from three (12-of-29).

“If Wednesday was about how iffy Ochai Agbaji can look when he gets out of his comfort zone, today is about how good he can be when he embraces his strengths,” Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune wrote Thursday night.

The Jazz, who now move to Las Vegas for a minimum of four games in the Las Vegas 2K24 Summer League (Friday through July 17) have been committed to getting Agbaji a batch of shots this summer as a continuation of his performance at the end of the 2022-23 regular season.

The former Big 12 Player of the Year and 2022 national champion at KU averaged 13.7 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists during the last 23 games of his rookie NBA season. He started 20 of the Jazz’s final 23 games after opening the season as a member of the Jazz’s G League team.

In all, he played nine games in the G League before working his way into the Jazz rotation.

Agbaji was whistled for 10 fouls in Wednesday’s game in Salt Lake City (it takes 10 fouls, not six to be disqualified in summer league as compared to the regular season), cutting that to three fouls in Thursday’s finale.

“Och is at a point where I don’t really care what his Summer League stat line says. You can tell there’s a willingness to impact the game, to try things. In a summer league context, I’d rather he have 10 fouls than 0, rather he shoot 6/17 than 6/7,” Dan Clayton of Saltcityhoops.com wrote on Twitter Thursday night.

Utah’s first game in the Vegas summer league will be against the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday.

Combo guard Agbaji had the play of the game in Thursday’s Salt Lake finale. Point guard Keyonte George took a step past the halfcourt line and launched an alley-oop to Agbaji who flushed a slam dunk with two minutes to play.

Former Baylor standout George was taken No. 16 by Utah in the 2023 NBA Draft. Agbaji was selected No. 14 in the 2022 draft by Cleveland then traded to Utah in September prior to the start of training camp.

“One last big highlight before Salt Lake City Summer League is over. Keyonte George lob to Ochai Agbaji!” Sarah Todd of the Deseret News wrote on Twitter.

Agbaji played for Cleveland in the summer league a year ago. He’s gearing for his first stint with Utah in the Vegas summer league following the three games in Salt Lake City.

“I expect to play every game in Vegas,” Agbaji told Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune, as the experiment of Agbaji being the team’s top scoring option figures to continue for at least 10 more days.