Utah Jazz: Gobert or go home

The Step Back has been born from the aesthetics and traditions of the Hardwood Paroxysm Basketball Network. In the past, Hardwood Paroxysm has produced a massive stand-alone season preview. This year, that preview effort has been rolled up into the launch of The Step Back. 

The Step Back’s writers and illustrators have prepared a hefty deep-dive into each team, built from multiple smaller sections. This year’s theme is television comedies and each section is named after some of our favorite sitcoms. For links to all 30 teams, as well as details about the focus of each section, check out our guide on how to read this preview.

Community

By Miles Wray (@mileswray)

The Utah Jazz were one of three teams involved in one of the smartest trades in the modern NBA. It was July 2013:

Denver Nuggets get: Randy Foye / 2018 second-round pick
Golden State Warriors get: Andre Iguodala / Kevin Murphy
Utah Jazz get: Andris Biedrins / Richard Jefferson / Brandon Rush / 2014 first-round pick (Rodney Hood) / 2016 second-round pick (Tyrone Wallace) / 2017 first-round pick / 2017 second-round pick / 2018 second-round pick / cash

Even the Nuggets, the clear third fiddle, did a find job of generating value for themselves. In exchange for an impending free agent, Iguodala, Denver signed-and-traded their way into a few years of Foye’s veteran-osity. Then, at the February 2016 Trade Deadline, they flipped him for two second-round picks. The Warriors paid a premium in draft assets. But they did not overpay, guessing correctly that Iguodala was a vaguely Pippen-shaped piece who could complete a championship puzzle. And the Jazz. This trade is about Iguodala, and here are the Jazz doing a remarkable job of shoving their way into it.

Utah’s haul here is as unsexy as it is valuable, shouldering toxic assets in exchange for the bushel of picks. This trade happened long after Biedrins stopped caring, and long before Jefferson could be had for the minimum. Rush, as he does, drifted in and drifted away without hardly making a ripple. And for enduring this, the Jazz now have Rodney Hood.

This trade is like every move that Dennis Lindsey has made for Utah, only more so: deeply, thoroughly patient. For a whole year, the Jazz bench sagged under the weight of the three overpaid medicines. It was sour medicine, with no encouraging prospects to watch as a chaser. A year! Do you remember it? It was long and uninspiring. Lindsey’s patience looked a lot like inaction.

And now that year feels like it was a long, long time ago. It feels shorter in hindsight, too. Hood is firmly part of that essential nucleus — a group larger than a starting lineup — plus all sorts of picks are queued up still. When enough time passes, Lindsey’s patience looks a lot like wisdom.

I’m impressed, obviously. I’m impressed with any trade that changes shape years after the paperwork was filed — a plan that unfolds, finally, revealing a cunning plan underneath. Which means I’m just as impressed with the Warriors in this move, too.

It’s tempting to think of first-round picks as the very most valuable asset in the league. Could be a star! Golden State’s trade taught me, though, that the same pick, in one moment, holds wildly different value between different teams. For the Warriors of July 2013, quickly approaching greatness, the time for developing had ended. The moment for urgency had arrived.

So, June 2016: Lindsey sends his first-round pick away right before the draft, netting George Hill. In the weeks to follow: a trade for Boris Diaw, and — the largest unrestricted free agent deal of the Lindsey era — two years and $20 million for Joe Johnson.

With these moves, especially sending away that pick, Lindsey effectively announced that his long moment for patience has ended, and that a new moment of urgency has begun. It’s hard to figure how the Jazz, scooting along at .500 last year, could tally up the wins in order to make serious moves in a top-loaded Western Conference. That, but also Lindsey is dealing from one of the strongest foundations in the league. He’s been building that foundation for years, one patient move after another.

Arrested Development

By Joe Clarkin (@Joe_Clarkin)

The Utah Jazz are the obsessive NBA fan’s version of that band you knew and loved before they got famous. You’ve pored over their roster, appreciating each smart acquisition general manager Dennis Lindsey has made, while thinking to yourself, “This is the year.” It’s like their debut album is about to come out, and after seeing them get better and better as they played small clubs around town, you know this record is gonna be a hit. It’s a matter of when, not if, the bandwagon gets crowded around you.

The Jazz are going to be good, no question. This roster is deep, and Lindsey has done a great job building slowly rather than rushing. He’s handled being a small market GM in the way you have to handle such a job: by building through the draft, making smart trades, and signing veterans to reasonable contracts that allow him to maintain flexibility going forward.

But if there’s one thing holding them back, it’s their performance late in close games. In essence, the Jazz aren’t #clutch.

With less than five minutes remaining, and the score was within five points, Utah was the third worst team in the league, with a -17.8 per 100 possession point differential. Only the Sixers and Suns were worse, while luminaries like the Kings and the Nets were better.

Now, if you’re like me, you might see that net rating and think to yourself, “Well, that’s because the Jazz don’t have a superstar.” That’s a reasonable thought. Ostensibly, the time when superstar players are most valuable is late in a close game. You can just feed them the ball down the stretch, knowing that they can either score themselves, or set up a teammate. And as good as Gordon Hayward is, he’s not quite on that level.

But the Jazz’s problems late in games did not stem from a lack of offense or go-to creator. Utah averaged 103.1 points per 100 possessions overall in the regular season — 17th in the NBA — and that figure moved up to a 103.5 offensive efficiency in the clutch, good for 19th in such situations. Basically, nothing about the Jazz offense changed when they found themselves in a close game.

That, of course, means the defense was the problem. In these clutch situations, the Jazz’s defensive efficiency ballooned from its usual 101.6 (8th in the league) to 121.3, a figure which would have been worst in the league by a mile. For a team whose identity is built on defense, that drop wasn’t just shocking, it was embarrassing.

So what caused it? Injuries certainly didn’t help. Dante Exum, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert and Alec Burks each missed somewhere between 20 games and the entire season. Those are four of the Jazz’s best seven players. Their absence meant guys like Trevor Booker and Trey Burke were playing heavy minutes late in games. While those guys’ effort is unquestioned, neither is anywhere near as good as the player(s) they were stepping in for, especially on the defensive end.

Maybe the cure to Utah’s late-game defensive woes is as simple as getting a full, healthy season from their core four. Maybe all it takes is allocating those minutes to George Hill, Joe Johnson and Trey Lyles, rather than Booker and Burke. Maybe it was just a fluky year — the Jazz only had a -2.4 point differential in the clutch in 2014-15.

At the same time, it’s not like any of those four injury-plagued players solved those problems in the relatively few clutch situations they did appear in. Exum obviously did not play at all, but when Favors was on the court in the clutch, the Jazz were still a -11.0, with a 118.2 defensive efficiency. And that was the best performance out of himself, Gobert and Burks. Gobert perhaps played less minutes than he could have due to his poor foul shooting, but the Jazz still tanked on defense late in games while he was on the floor.

So, perhaps the panacea is not as simple as putting those injuries in the rearview mirror. A team with Rudy freaking Gobert should never struggle to defend, regardless of what the game situation might be. The Jazz are young, so late-game performance may improve with time, but until further notice, it’s holding them back.

Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Third Rock From the Sun

By Daniel Lewis (@minutemandan)

When the Utah Jazz acquired Rudy Gobert in a draft-day trade for the No. 27 pick in the 2013 draft, they added the tall French center to a frontcourt that was already occupied by two promising big man in Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter. Gone was the veteran frontcourt from the year earlier of Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap — it was time for the young Jazz bigs to take over.

The Jazz won 25 games that year, 18 fewer games than they did the season prior, and finished last in the division. Gobert barely cracked Tyrone Corbin’s rotation with a measly 9.6 minutes per game. Corbin’s disastrous season resulted in his dismissal, and Quin Snyder took over the hot seat in Salt Lake City.

At the trade deadline, the Jazz were approached by the Oklahoma City Thunder in regards to Kanter. With an eye towards the future, the Jazz traded Kanter for Kendrick Perkins, the rights to Tibor Pleiss, a protected 2017 first-round pick and a 2017 second-round pick. The move allowed the Jazz to slot Gobert into the starting lineup alongside Derrick Favors, and things improved dramatically.

In the remaining 28 games of the 2014-15 season, the Jazz gave up just 100 points six times (once in overtime). Gobert played to a 120 offensive rating and a 93 defensive rating after the All-Star Game, according to Basketball Reference. The Stifle Tower had arrived in America.

Last season was Gobert’s first season as the full-time starter, and he didn’t disappoint. Teams were more aware of his prowess as a shot blocker and players sought him out for big-time dunks. He was a double-double threat on most nights, using his prodigious length to grab rebounds and score around the rim.

A knee injury shelved Gobert for 21 games last year, and there were times when he looked a little sluggish on the court after the All-Star game. Having to recover from his injury and other ailments that come as part of an 82-game season is likely to blame for that, but it was a little disappointing for a player that had performed so well in limited minutes but struggled with additional minutes.

For the Jazz, they are going to continue to be lead this season by Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors, their two best players. The Jazz added George Hill, Joe Johnson, and Boris Diaw in the offseason to help power a playoff run after the team missed the playoffs by one game in the 2015-16 season. They have talented young players in Rodney Hood and Dante Exum who will continue to develop and refine their games throughout the season.

But the Jazz, despite all those other pieces, will need their third-best player, Gobert, to stay healthy throughout the season to guard the paint and lead what could be one of the league’s best defenses.

Perfect Strangers

by Matt D’Anna (@hoop_nerd)

Ten Word Analysis: The spacing is great, and the bench is deep.

TeamSPACE charts are based on mapped clusters of shot activity. These areas are affectionately called Hunting Grounds, because they are the areas on the court where a player hunts for shots — and successfully scores most often. TeamSPACE takes the Hunting Grounds of all five players in a lineup and puts them on the court together — because, you know, they have to share that physical space, and there is only one ball.

In the past, it was one color per player; which meant that blending colors represented overlapping spaces for shot activity. But this time around, these are not your ordinary TeamSPACE shot maps. Each lineup is analyzed in the aggregate — one color! — and that unit is compared that unit to the rest of the league. So you will see a persistent red layer on every chart, highlighting the league’s Hunting Grounds from last season. The most prolific locations should come as no surprise: the paint, the corners, most of the top of the arc, and a couple of dabs at the foul line and top of the key.

So…how were these lineups chosen for each team? In the past, it’s been about projecting the starting lineup, estimating the most used lineup, or even designing the “most favoritest” lineup. This year? It’s the these charts represent the “most interestingly feasible” lineups….what? That’s a loaded phrase, so let’s unpack it a bit.

The goal is to identify the collection of five players on a team that could potentially play together, and if they did, the offensive results could be glorious. Ideally these lineups aren’t too far-fetched, but also slightly off-kilter and confusing to an opposing defense. While this type of analysis is not conducive for assessing defense, somewhat reasonable decisions are attempted to be made. So while it’s tempting to just put all the best shooters together…how realistic is it (outside of Houston, at least)? And, full disclosure: I favor some stretch in my lineups. It not only provides plenty of high-octane potential, but getting stretchy is also on par with current league-wide trends.

Each TeamSPACE chart has a couple of other sitcom-related features:

Family Matters: You’ll notice a series of Jaleel White’s across half court. Each lineup is scored on a scale of 0-7 Steve Urkels for how well it matches league-wide trends. Remember, there’s seven league Hunting Grounds (right corner three; at the rim; left corner three; foul line/top of the key; right wing; middle 3pt; left wing). A lineup gains points for matching each area; it loses points for messy excess shot activity.

Odd Couple: “Most interestingly feasible” is obviously debatable, so in order to account for some of those decisions, you’ll see Oscar and Felix on each chart. Often, there are players that are in the lineup…and maybe/probably they should not be. They get the Oscar label. And, there are those players that are out of the lineup…and maybe/probably should be included. They are the Felix for their team.

And briefly, a word about data. These strange visual displays are based on last season’s shot data, weighted by made buckets — so rookies and season-long injuries are sadly excluded. This analysis is nothing without the help of Darryl Blackport, and the research materials available at Basketball-Reference and NBA.com. Further, these charts feature some of the best logo re-designs I could curate from the ol’ Information Superhighway, including Dribbble.com and Pinterest. I made none of the logos; I merely selected some of my favorites. Enjoy!

Everybody Loves Raymond

By Brandon Jefferson (@pengriffey_jr)

Boris Diaw is the most interesting man in the world. Forget what Dos Equis has been trying to sell you since 2006, that guy is a fraud. Aside from starting the small-ball power forward revolution in the mid-2000s, Diaw has also traveled the world seeking adventure, became a photographer, written a children’s book, and became a screenwriter and director. Don’t forget that he also has plans to conquer space travel within the next 30 years. All of that, powered mostly by java and espresso, helped make Diaw into the renaissance man we’ve come to know and love over his 13-year NBA career.

Diaw isn’t done playing in the NBA even though it might feel that way after this offseason. He shockingly isn’t a member of the San Antonio Spurs anymore, but he is still a member of a potential playoff team with the Utah Jazz. While his ability to play different spots in the frontcourt, his ability to stretch the floor, and his mesmerizing ability as a playmaker, will all be helpful traits to the upstart Jazz it’s the idea of placing Diaw in Utah is what truly has me excited about the 2016-17 season.

One glance at Boris Diaw’s instagram page (@diawboris) reveal just how deeply this man enjoys life. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego could’ve learned a thing or two from Diaw. He’s taken a Tibetan Uber, climbed and camped the Grand Canyon, directed short films in Los Angeles, farmed coffee in the mountains of Colombia, captured selfies in the middle of the Baobab forest in Senegal. His life is like an international Mad Lib game.

Imagine Diaw watching the planets orbit at the Clark Planetarium, or walking through the Red Butte Garden and Arboretum. Diaw could venture off to Antelope Island State Park and watch the bison graze or sit next to the pond feeding ducks at Sugar House Park. Picture him marveling at the constructional beauty of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, Salt Lake Temple, and Holy Trinity Cathedral. The possibilities are endless!

As a player, Diaw has experienced ups and downs in regards to his play on the floor. He was misused in Atlanta, which led to him packing on some weight. He was saved by Phoenix and Mike D’Antoni shortly after. He was cut by Michael Jordan in Charlotte after spending the 2011 NBA Lockout back home in France. He had an espresso machine placed in his locker in San Antonio. His time sharing his talents in basketball with us may be coming to an end, but the man, the myth, the legend that is Boris Diaw will live on in ways we aren’t yet ready to comprehend.

There are a little under 200,000 people in Salt Lake City, meaning that there are about 200,000 people who now have the chance to have their entire lives’ altered forever. Diaw will continue to do amazing things off the court and occasionally he’ll transfer the thirst for adventure into the NBA arena as well. Boris Diaw is coming Utah and get ready for all the fun and joy that comes along with him.

Boy Meets World

By Trevor Magnotti (@IllegalScreens)

Trey Lyles and Dante Exum aren’t the guys who are going to make or break the Jazz season. Utah has plenty of depth and talent, and unlike many so-called “young teams,” they aren’t going to be asking their second and third-year players to play starter’s minutes as they attempt to break through into the Western Conference playoffs.

Lyles and Exum will have important roles to play, though. The Jazz made two big moves at the positions these two will occupy, upgrading to George Hill at point guard and Boris Diaw as their third big. But they also gave away the guys who would be competing directly with Lyles and Exum for minutes. Trey Burke was traded to Washington, and the team let reserve forward Trevor Booker walk in free agency. The idea behind both moves was that Lyles and Exum will both be capable of filling those reserve roles to an equal or better level than what Burke and Booker could.

For Lyles, this is a reasonable assumption. After all, he filled the fourth big role last year, and did so pretty well after some early struggles. He can stretch the floor to a degree that a guy like Booker can’t, which is useful next to the post-heavy Favors or a dive man like Gobert. Lyles shot 38.3 percent from three last year, an excellent mark that should be a good sign of things to come as he continues to develop his shooting technique. He also has the tools to be a proficient rebounder and defend in space, and the hope is that he progresses in that area after being pretty average for a rookie last year. He should continue to add a dynamic as a catch-and-shoot weapon who can pass and defend, which fits very well next to the limited Gobert or old-school Favors.

Exum, meanwhile, has a lot to prove. Coming back from an ACL tear, his athleticism (the biggest draw for him as a prospect) is a bit of a question mark, and he didn’t show much in his rookie season in terms of technical skills. Exum has all the size in the world at 6-6 with a near-6-10 wingspan, and you’d have to think there will be some defensive progression as he matures into his body. His shooting stroke should also theoretically improve, as shooting is the only basketball activity a player can do for a significant portion of the ACL rehab process. But this season will likely be a lot like Jabari Parker’s 2015-2016, in that Exum will probably struggle for a good chunk of the season as he gets up to full-speed.

Whether Exum is ready and Lyles can progress won’t totally decide how the Jazz season unfolds. However, if both players can progress to living up to their potential, it makes this Utah team that much scarier. If Lyles is hitting 38-39 percent from three as your fourth big, and a 21-year old Exum starts displaying the raw playmaking and defensive ability that got him drafted 5th overall, suddenly this Jazz team goes nine-deep with quality options that can pick you apart on both ends. Youth development is a very risky endeavor in the NBA, but the Jazz are in the odd situation of having low-risk, high-reward development projects in 2016-2017.