The Isaiah Collier discourse sure has subsided, hasn’t it? Nobody has anything to say about this first-round pick these days, but during an offseason filled with anxiety, I suppose no news is good news.
Darryn Peterson struggled to whip the ball through the net against [blatantly illegal] aggressive 10-foul defensive schemes of the Las Vegas Summer League. Cody Williams continues to play chameleon no matter the level of his competition. Walker Kessler collected a payday to move to Los Angeles while the Utah front office raked in a decadent feast of draft capital.
But nobody has said a word about Collier, who looks upward to a front line of Keyonte George and Darryn Peterson, pouring topsoil over Zeke’s standing in the depth chart. He’s not quite six feet under — no need to check any coffins for claw marks — but his place in the batting order is set behind two incredibly promising guards.
How strange it is to recall how Isaiah Collier was once the highest-rated player in the high school class of 2023. Oh, hi there, Cody. What are you doing at the seventh spot?
Isaiah Collier is the perfect second-unit operator for the competition-shifted Jazz.
Sturdy, strong, and like a wood barrel rocket ship (new band name, called it!) when he gets rolling downhill, Collier was regarded as the best guard in the nation and an elite distributor. But it wasn’t all sunshine in SoCal once Collier committed to USC. As solid as his counting stats were — 14.7 points, 4.8 assists, and 1.5 steals on 49.0% field goal shooting — NBA teams weren’t quite sold on his stardom. Riddled with inconsistency, a lack of athletic explosion, and more turnovers than a roadside bakery at rush hour, Collier’s awkward freshman season slotted the former number-one prospect between the late lottery-early 20s range.
He slipped to the 29th pick, and the upside-minded Jazz squealed as they called in their last first-round selection. They were equally giddy to find Kyle Filipowski available in the second round.
But here we are today, two years removed from the baffling 2024 draft, and I feel it’s appropriate to declare that Isaiah Collier is the perfect second-unit operator for the competition-shifted Jazz.
Can we acknowledge just how absurd Collier’s assist numbers have been in his two seasons of professional hoops? Isaiah Collier posted the eighth-highest average across the entire NBA last year as a sophomore, after a rookie season where he finished 16th on the totem pole.
He added 0.9 assists while playing fewer minutes per game, with only 25.7 minutes of floor time off the bench. Among players who appeared in 25 or more games last season (he played 59), Collier’s 0.28 assists per minute is the fifth highest rate in basketball.
As a supplier of dimes, nobody is minting like Isaiah Collier off the bench.
His 7.2 assists per game were easily the highest for any player who played at or near 25 minutes, with his peers in playing time, Cam Spencer and Jamal Shead, finishing 25th with 5.6 assists in 23.8 minutes, and 27th with 5.4 assists in 22.6 minutes.
As a supplier of dimes, nobody is minting like Isaiah Collier off the bench — no one comes close.
He is among the most dependable distributors in the land, and perhaps the steal of the 2024 draft as a late first-round acquisition.
But that darn knuckleball jump shot of his is a fishing hook in the rear. Pull as you might, it will only yank you further backwards.
Yes, he improved his counting stats across the board in his second season (a gentle reminder that he did this while spending less time on the court), up to 11.7 points on a 49.5% field goal rate, 7.2 assists, and 1.1 steals, all while cutting his turnovers down to 2.5 per night. We will take a 2.88 assist-to-turnover ratio all day long, especially with Keyonte struggling to take care of possession in his starting role (6.1 assists to 3.1 giveaways).
He even improved his three-point shooting splits! …From a dismal 24.9% to a hardly palatable 27.0%. Cody, you’re back again already?
The ball reaches its target like a boulder on an ice sheet when Collier launches from three. With no touch, finesse, or consistency in his stroke, he’s hitting an absolutely unacceptable rate of his three-point looks for a rotation-level NBA guard. This is the sticking point. He’s self-aware, of course, and rarely forces the issue from downtown — he hit two three-pointers in just two games as a sophomore, and attempted more than three just once — but all the same, it’s a glaring weakness in his game and puts a caveat on his potential as an NBA contributor.
But when Keyonte and DP are off the floor, Collier is the steady hand you want directing the second unit.
Calvin Barrett is the Associate Editor for SLC Dunk. Originally from Springville, Utah, he currently lives in Japan and has covered the NBA and college athletics since 2024.
