Juwan Morgan knows the importance of staying ready.
The 23-year-old forward was as surprised as anyone when Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder told the team that Morgan would start for the team while point guard Mike Conley missed the start of the NBA playoffs last season.
“It was crazy,” Morgan recalled.
He was nervous at first, but his teammates quickly rallied around him.
“He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t trust you,” they told him. “You know what you need to do.”
As the Jazz prepare to begin a new season — one filled with a truncated schedule, myriad back-to-backs, and the uncertainty of playing amid a global pandemic — second-year players Morgan, Miye Oni, Jarrell Brantley and the other role players on the team’s bench want to be ready for whatever comes their way.