Former Utah Forward Makes NBA History

From 2017 to 2021, The Utah Jazz was the home of Georges Niang.

The player lovingly nicknamed the “minivan” broke out as rotation player in Salt Lake City alongside some of the most exciting teams in Jazz history.

Niang had to work his way up.

As a seldom used, two-way player, Niang spent the 2017 year with the Salt Lake City Stars and only appeared in 9 Jazz games.

By 2020, his 4^th season in Utah, Niang was averaging 16 minutes a night and shooting 42.5 percent from deep on 4 attempts, for a team that was the #1 seed in the Western Conference.

Fast forward to the present day where Georges has finished a two-year stint in Philadelphia and now resides with former Jazz teammate, Donovan Mitchell, in Cleveland.

With the Cavaliers, Niang is currently putting up 9.2 points per night (tying a career high) and rebounding at a higher rate than ever before on about 22 minutes a game.

The stats would tell you that Niang is a better version of what he’s always been. A forward with a sweet shot who can provide needed depth for a good basketball team.

Yet, despite his year-by-year growth and impact, no one would ever accuse Niang of being a superstar or putting up superstar numbers.

Last night Niang did his best to challenge that narrative.

In a home contest of the Milwaukee Bucks, Niang was a crucial part of an impressive 135-95 drubbing.

How crucial you ask? Let’s put it this way. In a game featuring Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard, Georges Niang walked away with honors of being the games leading scorer.

It was a 33-point performance for the former Iowa State Cyclone, which was 9 points more than he had ever scored in his career.

If your impressed by that, the way in which he did it was the historical part.

In 14 shot attempts, Niang hit 13 of them. That’s 93 percent.

He took six three pointer’s and drilled 5 of them.

The impressive shooting made Niang become the first player to do what he did in that fashion off the bench:

Out of all the great bench players in basketball’s beautiful history, one man’s box score stands supreme, and as of now that player is former Jazzman Georges Niang.