Cleveland Cavaliers: Former Cavs guard Jordan Clarkson should be poised for postseason redemption with Jazz

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Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson celebrates in-game. (Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images) /

Clarkson’s second go should be much better than his first with the Cleveland Cavaliers

Clarkson, who was initially a trade deadline acquisition by the Cavs in 2018 from the Los Angeles Lakers, did pop early on with Cleveland, but in his first NBA postseason, he had a horribly rough go of it.

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In that 2018 postseason, Clarkson had just 4.7 points per game on 30.1 percent shooting from the field, and 23.9 percent from three-point range in 19 appearances. It was well, not ideal, and Clarkson seemed for the most part, unplayable.

That was unfortunate for him, but though the Cavs were eventually shifting to a full-rebuild in 2018-19 after LeBron James departed to the Los Angeles Lakers, Clarkson did do really well from there for Cleveland leading up to when he was traded to Utah in December of 2019.

In 2018-19, excluding Kevin Love, who was only active in 22 games, Clarkson led the Cavs in scoring with a career-best 16.8 points per game. He made an impact again for the Cavs leading up to him being dealt in 2019-20, and with Utah to this point this season, he’s continued to fill it up as a bench scorer.

Clarkson has had 15.6 points per outing on 48.2 percent shooting in 25.3 minutes per game in 34 appearances, and while he’s still fully capable of getting his share of unassisted buckets, Clarkson has done very well as a spot-up player.

He’s cashed in off feeds from Joe Ingles, Mitchell, Mike Conley and others off of ball-swings, and kept it going from how he was doing with the Cavs leading up to the trade. He’s hit 36.6 percent of his three-point attempts on what would be a career-high 5.7 attempts per game after a 37.1 percent clip from deep in 2019-20 with Cleveland on 5.5 attempts per game.

Anyway, with Clarkson two-plus years past that nightmarish postseason with the Cavs, I firmly believe he’s poised for postseason redemption with the Jazz. Clarkson is a considerably better off-ball player and is much more comfortable than he was then with the Cavs, and I just personally think we’ll see him much more efficient.

While Clarkson is quite the bailout weapon that should be able to get his iso buckets at times still, he’s made huge strides as a cutter and spot-up threat, and I expect him to make his presence felt in a big way in his minutes-share for Utah. He was really rolling with them pre-hiatus and I just firmly believe he’s ready for a bounce-back postseason following seeding games before then.

In addition, given the nature of this postseason, maybe a team like Utah could make some noise?