Trey Burke Issues Apology: The Downbeat #1465

Following the precedent I set last year, I am having a Downbeat for every major Utah Jazz player. Starting with Trey Burke.

Trey Burke was silenced by the Utah Jazz yesterday due to what appeared to be a self inflicted controversy. Leaked pictures of Trey Burke naked leaked onto the interwebs. How that occurred is anybody's guess. Aaron Falk of the Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Trey Burke's season began with an apology Monday, after nude photos of the Utah Jazz point guard were leaked on the Internet and spread over social media. ... The photos, which did not show the player's face, apparently surfaced online a few weeks ago but spread suddenly late Sunday night, leaving Burke and the Jazz with a social media drama for its Media Day.

This is unfortunately an embarrassing time for Trey Burke. It's a learning opportunity of the price of being a professional athlete and star in the league.

Trey Burke's speaking was limited to an apology.

Publicly, I want to first and foremost apologize to my family [and] apologize to the Miller family, as well as my teammates. We already talked about it in the locker room. From this day forward, it won't happen again. They were old pictures. They were meant to be kept private but they weren't. So from this day forward my actions and my judgments will be much better. --Trey Burke

Quin Snyder, who most likely anticipated talking about Trey's basketball game rather than his selfie game, offered the coach speak and mentor response:

We've handled that internally, and Trey's handled it with his teammates, and we've handled it as an organization, and we're moving forward. -- Quin Snyder

Dennis Lindsey, however, didn't sound like they had taken a step forward past this incident.

We've collected a lot of the facts. We still have a few things to collect and a couple of people to visit with. It's safe to say ... that we are disappointed in what we've learned so far but we are going to move forward. At this point in time, we're collecting facts and we're going to reserve final judgment for a later date.

...

To couple both, I think, would be a little much at this point in time. Again, we still have a few more facts to find and some more research to do. I understand the timing of the question. It's certainly relevant. But we'll hold off on commenting about that right now. -- Dennis Lindsey

To those who are shocked that this happened haven't seen Trey Burke's Instagram account. Also, we don't know what context these were sent in. The guy has every right to send private pictures however he'd like to. However, this is the Utah Jazz. These pictures and this controversy is happening right after the Utah Jazz patted themselves on the back for having high character players and drafting high character players.

Is Trey Burke one of those high character players? I think so. It doesn't help his case, though, that there is leaked nudes of himself on the internet only a few months after making fun of a lesser fortunate person on the internet. The Utah Jazz are counting on Trey Burke asserting himself as a leader and an example. They are, also, hoping he endears himself to the fans of the Utah Jazz. The past two incidents are examples of him failing in that aspect.

As of right now, Trey Burke's twitter has been removed, but his Instagram remains. Twitter being removed prior to this whole situation would not have prevented this because the pictures were leaked not shared by Trey. For Trey this must be incredibly embarrassing. I wouldn't want my goods being spread all over the internet and I doubt any of our readers would appreciate the matter either. I never would have thought I would spend an entire media day trying to find something about Trey that didn't talk about his family heirloom, BUT here we are.

Soon practice will start and we'll get to start talking about Trey's basketball game, and thank goodness for that.

From this writer at SLCDunk, I say to Trey and his family, look past this, we're on your side. If this was sent in confidence we hope the people who released it get their due reward, and that you can keep your head held high. The one thing we Utah Jazz fans do is protect and love our own. As long as you do right by us, we'll do right by you. Good luck, Trey.

Trey Burke has been working on his defense a lot.

Coach Snyder says all the time that he knows I can play defense, but that it's a mindset. Something that I have to take serious enough. He tells me all the time that if it's important then your'e going to do it. ... I know I can be a good defender even with my size, getting over screens. I think that was the biggest area that I needed to improve upon and I worked on it a lot this summer.

I know when looking at Synergy last year that Trey Burke's kryptonite was the pick and roll. If he was screened he was eliminated from the play. If he improves this year in this category the Jazz's defense will improve tenfold.

Trey Burke was asked if fans needed to be patient with this Jazz team.

You need to be patient with this team, but, on the other hand, we have the talent to give the fans what they want.

Having listened to all these interviews I've noticed a high level of buy in from all the players. They are bought into Quin's philosophy and his energy. They've talked a lot about his high level of communication. Contrast that with Tyrone Corbin who was known for his lack of communication. Quin Snyder's level of execution with communicating his message will easily overcome any deficiencies in his strategy. This is one of those signs right here. There's a subtle confidence being bred with this Utah Jazz team.