Collin Sexton will enter his seventh NBA season with the best scoring average of any Alabama alumnus in league history. At 18.9 points per game, the Utah Jazz guard is ahead of the 18.3 averaged by Latrell Sprewell across 13 NBA seasons.

Although he’s 25 years old, Sexton’s NBA experience and success make him unusual on this season’s Jazz roster. As Utah starts training camp for the 2024-25 NBA season, the Jazz could be counting on seven players from the past three drafts who are 23 years old or younger to handle roles.

“I’m excited just because of the mix,” Sexton said on Monday. “I feel like we’re going to be able to help the younger guys. I feel like the younger guys are going to be able to help us. And it’s going to be fun. I feel like people forget the roster that we do have and the guys that we do have are really good, so even though we are so-called rebuilding, I feel like we can surprise a lot of people.

“And for me, I like to prove people wrong, and I feel like we have the team to do so. With Lauri (Markkanen) and (Jordan Clarkson), we’re not coming in — and John (Collins) — we’re not coming in thinking next year. We’re coming in thinking now.”

Clarkson is a 10-year NBA veteran. Markkanen and Collins have played seven seasons apiece. But then there are former Auburn standout Walker Kessler from the 2022 draft, Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George and Brice Sensabaugh from the 2023 draft and Cody Williams, Isaiah Collier and Kyle Filipowski from the 2024 draft.

“I would say just being a leader is a trait that I feel like I carry each and every day, something that I keep on my shoulders,” Sexton said. “I feel like this year, I’m going to be able to have more of a louder voice and be able to help the younger guys, just because coming into the league for me, I needed someone to mentor me, and George Hill was somebody that I was able to talk to. Him, Kevin Love, those two guys were guys that pretty much helped me through and through, so I feel like me being able to mentor them is going to be a huge thing for me.”

Sexton’s message to the young players? Trust your work.

“I feel like the guys have been working,” Sexton said. “Walker, he’s been working. Even the younger guys, they’ve all been working this summer, so I just feel like the jump is going to happen. At the end of the day, you’ve got to let your work speak for itself and trust your work. I always tell myself: Trust your work. And that’s something I’ve been instilling with the young guys: You’ve been shooting corner threes each and every day. Don’t pass up any. Trust your work. So that’s something that I feel like that’s where they’re going to be able to take a jump is just trusting they put the time in, they put the work in, and the results are going to come.”

Sexton is coming off a comeback campaign.

After joining Cleveland from the Crimson Tide as the eighth pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, Sexton was the Cavaliers’ leading point producer in each of his first three seasons. Heaveraged 24.3 points per game in the 2020-21 season – the best single-season scoring mark for a former Alabama player in NBA history.

But Sexton sustained a season-ending meniscus tear in the Cavaliers’ 11th game of the 2021-22 season. After being traded to Utah, Sexton played in 48 games during the 2022-23 season, with hamstring issues the main culprit for his 34 missed games.

Last season, Sexton played in every game until an illness caused him to miss the final four. Sexton had the most points and most assists for Utah in 2023-24, although by per-game average his 18.7 points were second to Markkanen’s 23.2 and his 4.9 assists were second to Clarkson’s 5.0.

In the first 23 games of the season, Sexton averaged 12.7 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 20.7 minutes. From his first start on Dec. 13 through the rest of the season, Sexton averaged 21.2 points, 2.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists in 29.1 minutes in 55 games.

Utah had a 22-29 record with Sexton in starting lineup and a 9-22 mark when he wasn’t.

Sexton said six seasons into his NBA career, he’s still striving to get better.

“I would say it’s always things that I can improve on, sharpen up my bag and just try to work on to be better for the new season that’s coming,” Sexton said. “For me, I felt like over the summer, I just wanted to focus in and work a lot on just off-the-dribble things and creating more separation on threes and just make it a priority each and every day, so that was something I felt like that was the one thing that I wanted to lock in on.”

Utah tips off a six-game preseason schedule against the New Zealand Breakers at 8 p.m. CDT Friday at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

The Jazz starts the regular season with a home game against the Memphis Grizzlies at 8 p.m. Oct. 23.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.