{"id":270412,"date":"2025-10-01T23:30:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270412\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T23:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:30:14","slug":"how-keyonte-george-found-a-way-to-get-team-to-bond-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/270412\/","title":{"rendered":"How Keyonte George found a way to get team to bond \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer, third-year guard Keyonte George<\/a> sent a message to Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy, asking if it was OK for him to take the rest of the players on the team on a trip for a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer is, of course,\u201d Hardy said. \u201cIn general, the best teams I\u2019ve been around have had really good human connection. And I think our guys are really trying to build that by spending a lot of time around each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

A number of the Jazz\u2019s younger players spent the majority of the offseason in Utah, continuing their training and practicing on a regular basis at Zions Bank Basketball Campus and various places around Salt Lake.<\/p>\n

That was already a huge bonus for the Jazz. The young core of the team wanted to be in Utah and was willing to dedicate themselves to extended work in the gym. But, George wanted the players to have a chance to do something together that wasn\u2019t organized by the team.<\/p>\n

George is from Lewisville, Texas, not far from Dallas. It\u2019s a place he\u2019s familiar with and was able to set up training opportunities and outings for those that would be able to make it. In the end, it was George, Taylor Hendricks<\/a>, Brice Sensabaugh, Ace Bailey<\/a>, Elijah Harkless, Walter Clayton Jr. and John Tonje.<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George (3) speaks with media during the Utah Jazz media day at the Zions Bank Basketball Campus in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the hardest thing in the NBA is to build camaraderie,\u201d George said. \u201cIt\u2019s easy in college, just because we\u2019re always with one another and staying close to each other. But now we\u2019ve all got our own lives … I hadn\u2019t (done anything) like that my first two years in the league. So to do something like that, it was pretty special for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

They went through conditioning drills together, played pickup games and weight trained. But they also went to a concert together, watched football games, went out to eat as a group.<\/p>\n

From the outside looking in, it\u2019s an obvious way for the players to create a more intimate bond, which can help with on-court chemistry and bring them together as people outside of basketball, and it\u2019s clear that George took on some responsibility as a leader in putting the trip together.<\/p>\n

But there are other ways that an excursion like this can show up for players on a team, and in ways that Hardy is already seeing, just after two days of training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way you see it reflected is they\u2019re able to be really honest with each other,\u201d Hardy said on Tuesday. \u201cThe way they communicate is not so careful. They\u2019re pretty blunt with each other, and there\u2019s a lot less sensitivity to receiving feedback from teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are, of course, players that weren\u2019t able to make it to Dallas that week. But the team kept in contact, players were texting and talking to each other and asking how the trip was going, and then the larger group was able to spend more time together in Utah.<\/p>\n

For those that were on the trip, they\u2019re hoping that they\u2019ve started what can become a team tradition. They want there to be a player-driven, player-organized, offseason trip where the coaches and the normal practice facility and the things that they see every day aren\u2019t the focal point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was big for us, and I think it\u2019s something that we should continue to do in the future,\u201d Sensabaugh said. \u201cJust because of how impactful it was to the people who were there … and it was only four or five days, but it gives you a different type of connection with those guys … I think it was really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah Jazz forward Brice Sensabaugh (28) speaks to media during the Utah Jazz media day at the Zions Bank Basketball Campus in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This summer, third-year guard Keyonte George sent a message to Utah Jazz coach Will Hardy, asking if it…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":270413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,1680,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-270412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-news-feed-local","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115301516872533407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}