LAS VEGAS — Opposing teams have wanted to spoil Darryn Peterson’s Summer League.
Peterson has heard opposing coaches calling out to their players, directing them to deny Peterson the ball, get it out of his hands, trap him, sabotage all of his plans.
“Don’t let him touch the ball!”
“Make it hard every time!”
“Even today, after I made a couple of shots, they changed it a little bit and they were red-ing instead of switching on stuff,” Peterson said on Sunday night. “Gotta watch film back, see who was open, what plays I could have made, how to draw more fouls.”
Red, in basketball parlance, usually refers to trapping with a post and weak side defender or hard trapping straight onto the ball, and Peterson has seen a wild amount of double-teams and traps in just four Summer League games (two in Salt Lake City and two in Las Vegas).
And if you were to glance at the Las Vegas Summer League results and see that the Jazz have lost both of their games, you would assume that the defenses against Peterson have worked. But that doesn’t really tell the whole story.
Peterson currently leads the 2026 Las Vegas Summer League class in free throw attempts at 8 per game, and in two games has drawn 22 fouls, all while being the eighth leading scorer overall. Against the Wizards on Thursday, Peterson was responsible for drawing six fouls on Jamir Watkins alone.
In Summer League, when players are allowed 10 fouls and the players are more expendable because the results don’t matter, it’s OK to continuously trap and blitz and ultimately get caught fouling in order to get a player like Peterson out of action. But these are not tactics that are going to work in the regular season.
In an NBA game, two quick fouls because of overly aggressive defense could make or break a team’s game plan, and foul trouble when playing against a player who is as crafty and as good of a shooter as Peterson is not at all what any team wants.
“Darryn is a guy that puts a lot of pressure on the defense, and guys generally with that type of characteristic get (to) the foul line,” Jazz Summer League head coach Steve Wojciechowski said. “And he can do it in a bunch of different ways. I mean, guys who can put the ball in the hole and get fouled like him are a real asset.”
What’s more is that Peterson shouldered the load and did so under circumstances when he didn’t have much help. On Sunday, against the Los Angeles Clippers, Peterson drew fouls, got to the line and was the Jazz’s leading scorer with 23 points, while Cody Williams struggled, going 0-of-2 from the field and Ace Bailey was sidelined at half time due to back spasms (Bailey went 0-of-5 before his night was finished).
The advantage teams have over the Jazz, as Wojciechowski pointed out, is that they have film they can watch from the Salt Lake City Summer League, while the Jazz don’t have summer game film of most of the teams they will face in Las Vegas.
Obviously, even without film, the top three players on the Jazz’s summer scouting report are Peterson, Williams and Bailey. With Williams and Bailey both struggling or sidelined, there’s really no reason for the opposing defense to focus its energy anywhere other than on Peterson.
But again, when the regular season rolls around and Peterson is flanked not only by major help, but All-Star level help, the defense won’t be able to solely rely on trapping Peterson to create havoc.
To this point, Peterson has shown that he can handle the pressure and still produce, having scored 20 or more points in each of his four Summer League games this month. There’s good reason to believe that when he’s not the lone mark on a team, he’ll be able to make even more of statement.