Two games, 36 shots: KC’s Ochai Agbaji enjoying expanded role on Utah Jazz summer team

Ochai Agbaji last week said he planned on “being all-around aggressive,” while playing a second season of NBA summer league basketball for the Utah Jazz.

The 6-foot-5, 23-year-old University of Kansas and Oak Park High School graduate — he averaged 13.7 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists during a sensational final 23 games in his rookie season (2022-23) — was asked by reporters if that meant attempting, say, 25 shots a game?

“Something like that,” Agbaji said, as reported by Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t know — that’s a lot. But I’m just going to be aggressive.”

Agbaji has been given the green light to look for his own shot on both drives and threes during summer league action. He’s led the Jazz in shot attempts during Utah’s first two games in the three-game Salt Lake City Summer League.

After Thursday’s finale versus Memphis in Salt Lake, it’s off to Las Vegas for a minimum of four games in the NBA 2K24 Summer League.

Agbaji, who started 20 of the Jazz’s final 23 games during the 2022-23 campaign, has been a high-volume shooter as the Jazz increase his responsibilities during summer ball ahead of his second season in the league.

Agbaji hit 6 of 17 shots — he was 4-of-8 from three-point range and 2-of-4 from the line — which was good for 18 points in Wednesday’s 104-94 loss to Philadelphia. Agbaji also secured five rebounds and blocked three shots. He had no assists against six turnovers while picking up 10 fouls in 27 minutes.

In summer-league games, it takes 10 fouls, not six, to foul out. During one third-quarter sequence he blocked a breakaway layup on one end, then hit a three on the other end to give Utah a 75-74 lead.

On Monday in a 95-85 loss to Oklahoma City, Agbaji scored 17 points on 7-of-19 shooting. He was 3-of-8 from three-point range, with nine rebounds, one assist and three turnovers. He picked up five fouls in 30 minutes.

“I think he has the mindset to be the right kind of aggressive,” said Evan Bradds, the Jazz summer league coach and team player development coach. “Sometimes when you tell guys to be too aggressive, they just start launching shots. … It’s like, ‘That’s not exactly what we want.’ Luckily for us, he has a pretty good feel of that. … I’ve got all the faith in the world in him.’”

Faith in Agbaji’s game came as a result of his steady progress in his rookie season.

Early on he played in nine games for the Salt Lake City Stars G League team, averaging 13.2 points and 3.4 rebounds per contest. Ultimately he earned the trust of Jazz head coach Will Hardy, eager to promote Agbaji to the NBA team.

“We reached a point in the season where he’d put in a really good body of work, and it was time to try and get him some minutes and see how he did,” Hardy told NBA.com, referring to Agbaji’s increased playing time. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I saw this coming. I think as a staff, we were very confident that his approach was going to be correct and that he was ready to dig in mentally to play in an NBA game. … He was fantastic.”

As far as having Agbaji play in the summer league for a second straight year (he played for Cleveland last July after being taken 14th overall in the 2022 Draft then was traded to Utah in September), which is somewhat unusual for an NBA starter, Hardy said: ”It’s an opportunity for him to get a ton of game reps and keep building on probably the last 10 games of the season.”

Agbaji scored 28 points against Denver in Utah’s final home game of the season.

“I think we all saw him take on a different role in those last 10 games, and so we want to try to build on that this offseason,” Hardy said.

Of Agbaji’s late-season performance, summer league coach Bradds told NBA.com: “He kind of did a little bit every single game to show that he could play then just continued that throughout the season. … When he got a lot more opportunities at the end, he really took advantage of it.”

Agbaji took just two weeks off at the end of the 2022-23 season and has been training in Utah ever since to prepare for this summer stint and his expected, expanded role.

“I step into that leader role,” Agbaji told NBA.com. “Being that point guard or facilitator, just being all around aggressive for my game and looking for other guys. … keeping everybody in the game.

“The confidence that I’m bringing from last year and those last 25 games that I played, it’s just kind of like stepping into a new role,” he added. “Just getting comfortable with that. … just being that leader to these guys, and then carrying that over to the real squad.”

The key to his rookie season success he noted was “just showing up every single day with a good attitude, not worrying about all the outside noise because there’s so much outside noise. Not worrying about that, but worry about what everyone in the Jazz (organization) is doing for me and what they’re trying to do for me.”

Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune gave a review of Agbaji’s performance after the Jazz’s summer league loss to OKC Monday: “Agbaji played a very different role in this summer league than he did during most of the games in the regular season, as the Jazz put the ball in his hands and had him attack the rim more often. At this, he was a mixed bag: he forced a couple of charges, missed some layups as he wasn’t able to get over OKC’s rim protection,” Larsen wrote.

“But he did impress in a few other ways. He got a career high in rebounds with nine, including a couple of times where he had to box out bigger guys down low. Rebounding is something he struggled with last year, so this was nice to see.

“He also attacked the glass on the defensive end in another way — attempting blocks. While he only ended with one, he was helping more at the rim than we’ve seen him be able to do before. That’s one of Agbaji’s goals, he’s said: get in better shape so he can play with high energy on both ends of the floor. Last season, it was kind of one end or the other — this game was a good first start, even if it wasn’t the most efficient on offense.”

After game two, Larsen wrote of Agbaji’s performance: “As a lottery selection at 23 years old, he should not have had 10 fouls, a 0/6 assist-to-turnover ratio, and shot 2-9 from inside the arc if this is a role that he’s going to be able to fill in the NBA.

“So Agbaji’s not going to be a high-usage guy in the league. He’s going to have to make his impact primarily from outside the arc, and then pick his spots more judiciously to attack the rim. And he’s going to have to be a responsible defender, not a high-steal guy.

“All that is okay! That can still be a tremendously valuable player. That can be Tim Hardaway Jr., or Kevin Huerter, or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, or Reggie Bullock, or whatever. But he probably can’t be, say, Zach LaVine or Desmond Bane or Dejounte Murray. In other words, he’s probably not a maximum contract guy — they just don’t have nights like tonight against summer league competition,” Larsen added.

The 2022 Big 12 player of the year and first-team All-American who started for KU’s 2022 NCAA title team, played 30 and then 27 minutes in his first two games this summer.

“Crazy cardio, crazy. His body is just incredible,” Utah forward Luka Samanic told the Deseret News. “And the game is slowing down for him, for sure. I think he’s just gonna get better and better.”

“Especially for probably not playing a whole lot of five-on-five, to come in and for him to play 30 minutes,” Bradds told the Deseret News. “Incredible shape. Obviously he came into last year in pretty good shape and it just got better. Then for him to be able to come out and get a lot of plays run for him and do a lot of stuff, it’s pretty impressive.”