New Utah Jazz keeper Chuck Harrison is keen to “fill this void” as a peripheral defender for the team

Nobody expected Utah Jazz to add a roster right before their first pre-season game for the 2020-21 season, but here we go. So, Shaquille Harrison, come down for a sneak peek of “Meet the New Man!”

Firstly, is it Shakil or just Shak?

“I really don’t care. Most of the people call me tough; my mom calls me Shakeel.”

Do you know anything about Utah before coming here?

“Lots of Mormons – that’s all I’ve heard.”

When first impressions arrived?

“Honestly, when I first got here, the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘This is a beautiful airport. “Where am I from, Kansas City Airport isn’t as nice as this.”

Direct and honest. admire. He got off to a good start. Where he goes from here, of course, probably depends on what Harrison does to jazz up the basketball court.

At the moment, not much.

The fourth-year goalkeeper was slowed by a broken hand, he suffered in a small game at Mamba Sports Academy in Los Angeles during the holiday season when an unspecified body part of Rockets defender James Harden embarrassingly caused Harrison’s hand to bend. He didn’t even realize anything was wrong at first, but when some swelling occurred later, the examination revealed a “small fracture”.

However, he is making progress towards a comeback.

“Now I’m very close. My schedule, it’s not certain when I’m playing, but as of now, I’m working without my cast, and it’s been like that for three days now.” My hand feels comfortable – there’s no pain in it. I just take it slowly and make sure we do it the right way. “

Harrison’s injury was actually news of new teammate Joe Engels, who knew nothing about her based on their limited first training together on Friday.

“I didn’t know his hand was broken!” Engels said with a laugh. “It looked fine today.”

They’ll hope he’s better than good once he’s officially ready to go.

He has already made an impression on jazz in this sense from his earlier stops in Phoenix and Chicago.

Coach Quinn Snyder agreed that Harrison’s hard-line stance at that end of court was clear.

“When you watch him play, he jumps up to you that he can defend,” said Snyder. “He can defend the ball, he has the physical strength, and when you see a man who can achieve it, I am excited for our staff and I am for the opportunity to work with him.”

Harrison said that while he hadn’t had a specific conversation with Jazz about his role, it wasn’t really hard for him to discern it.

“My goal is to enter to fill the void that they lost,” Harrison said. “For me, I’ll turn up every day and get 110%, and I really believe in that – every man comes to work hard every day. You can’t control your shots, you can’t control the entry of the ball, there will be some rest days, but you can come and play hard every day. This takes care of itself. “

Of course he has a hand heal and delayed reaching the team he is working against at the moment. The season has already been challenging for the newcomers, given the short pre-season and the lack of the team’s usual organized activities prior to the training camp.