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LAIE, Hawaii — A long line formed from the Cannon Activity Center through the campus of BYU-Hawaii.
It's not often an NBA team makes its way to the North Shore of Oahu. It's even rarer for it to open its practice doors and let the locals watch.
The Jazz held an open scrimmage for BYU-Hawaii students and the local community Thursday on the third day of training camp. It kept the team's tradition of hosting an open practice for fans, but just in a bit of a different location.
"You can tell like basketball is one of those global sports and you can just tell how much they just love us," guard Collin Sexton said.
You could see that by the Lauri Markkanen jerseys in the stands and the numerous Utah Jazz shirts. And you couldn't ignore the sizable cohort of Filipino fans hoping to get a glance at Jordan Clarkson.
"I didn't think this many people were gonna come out," Clarkson said. "Hawaii really showed some love."
Clarkson, along with most of the Jazz players, spent time after the practice/scrimmage signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. After all, the scrimmage was a way of saying mahalo to the fans in Laie and the surrounding communities.
"Being up here in the North Shore at BYU-Hawaii, they've been really, really great to let us use their space. They've been unbelievably hospitable," Jazz coach Will Hardy said. "They had a great welcome for us when we first got here. We wanted to make sure that we returned the favor, and showed them a little bit of love."
That little bit of love was about an hour long practice and scrimmage, and also served as the first outside look at the 2023-24 Jazz.
So any immediate takeaways?
The Jazz started out with Markkanen, John Collins, Walker Kessler, Talen Horton-Tucker and Keyonte George vs. Clarkson, Sexton, Ochai Agbaji, Kelly Olynyk and Omer Yurtseven.
But it would be unwise to think that's a set pecking order (though, it might be safe to assume that Markkanen, Kessler and Collins will be the starting front court).
The Jazz have used different combos in the backcourt in each session this week as they try to discover their best group; Thursday was just another part of that process.
All while giving the local community a chance to watch an NBA team in person.
The fans got to see some explosive dunks by John Collins and Lauri Markkanen. They cheered as Luka Samanic and Johnny Juzang got hot from three. And they saw first hand how quick George is with the ball in open court.
"It was cool. It always gives a little bit different energy to the gym, when there's fans in here," Hardy said. "So to let them in at the end of practice, watch the scrimmage. It gave our guys a much needed boost on the third day."
