SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Utah Jazz added four new players to their roster this offseason, signing Rudy Gay and Hassan Whiteside, drafting Jared Butler, and trading for Eric Paschall.
Gay and Whiteside are long-time NBA veterans with hundreds of starts throughout their careers, while Paschall is entering his third season in the league. Butler meanwhile will join the Jazz as a rookie after three standout years at Baylor.
With Gay and Whiteside on the back ends of their careers, and Paschall at Butler just beginning theirs, let’s look back at the best individual performances from each player on the hardwood.
Rudy Gay: Jan 21, 2014, vs. New Orlean Pelicans
Surprisingly, despite five seasons as a top-20 scorer in the NBA, Gay has never broken the 50 point barrier.
Gay’s career-high scoring mark is 41 points, a feat which he’s reached twice in his NBA career, once for the Toronto Raptors and once as a member of the Sacramento Kings.
The new Jazz forward’s career-best game came in a Kings uniform when in January of 2014, Gay scored 41 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and handed out five assists in a 114-97 blowout victory over the New Orleans Pelicans.
Gay knocked down 16-25 field goal attempts including 5-8 from three, both career-highs for makes en route to the win.
Fun Fact: Gay has his worst career-scoring average against the Jazz at just 14.3 points per game. His best game against the Jazz also came in 2014 when he scored 29 points and grabbed six rebounds in a 101-92 Kings victory in Sacramento.
Hassan Whiteside: Jan 25, 2015, vs. Chicago Bulls
Whiteside has had some truly eye-opening statistical performances throughout his career. His best game historically doesn’t feature his career-high in points (33) or rebounds (25), though it doesn’t show off his innate shot-blocking skills.
In January of 2015, Whiteside recorded a 14 point, 13 rebound, 12 block triple-double for the Miami Heat in a 96-84 win over the Chicago Bulls.
What’s most impressive however is that he did so in just 25 minutes in a game in which he did not start. In fact, it’s the fewest minutes any player has ever recorded while putting up triple-double off the bench in league history.
Fun Fact: Whiteside has career averages of 11.3 points and 12.7 rebounds against the Jazz in 10 appearances. He had a 23 point, 20 rebound performance against the Jazz in a 102-100 victory in 2018.
Eric Paschall: Nov. 4, 2019, vs. Trail Blazers
There’s little doubt about the best game of Paschall’s career. As a rookie out of Villanova, Paschall recorded career-highs in points and rebounds in the Warriors 127-118 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Jazz new forward scored 34 points and grabbed 13 rebounds in 39 minutes to outduel Lillard and the Blazers in San Francisco, and he did it on his birthday!
Paschall was the first Warriors rookie to score at least 30 points twice since Steph Curry in 2010.
Fun Fact: Paschall averages 8.8 points per game against the Jazz, one of only seven teams he averaged fewer than double-digit points against so far in his NBA career. His best game against the Jazz came in 2019 when he scored 12 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and handed out five assists in a 113-109 loss.
Jared Butler: Jan. 18, 2021, vs. Kansas Jayhawks
Butler never made life easy on Kansas averaging more than 20 points per game in six meetings as members of the Big 12.
However, his best game came earlier this year when as a junior, Butler scored 30 points, the second-highest total of his career, and handed out eight assists in a 77-69 win.
Butler shot 10-14 from the floor and 7-9 from three in the second of his two career wins over the Jayhawks during his college career. With the total, Butler joined Kevin Durant as the only player in Big 12 history to score at least 30 points twice against the Jayhawks.
Fun Fact: Butler played two games at Vivint Arena during his career in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The guard scored 14 points, grabbed five rebounds, and dished out four assists in a 78-69 victory over Syracuse in the opening round. Butler scored just 11 points and snared three rebounds in an 83-71 loss to Gonzaga, the same team he’d beat to win the NCAA Championship during his final game in college.
