The Utah Jazz will old man their way into your heart
In today’s NBA, length and athleticism are hot commodities. Every year teams try to find ways to add more athletes so that they can reasonably switch all over the floor and create problems for offenses. This evolution has led to games becoming faster and faster as the athletes fly around the floor to make plays. The Utah Jazz have bucked the trend and gone in another direction, though, and they may be one of the most fun teams in the NBA because of it.
While Utah certainly has athletes — as Rodney Hood showed with a thunderous dunk on Tuesday — they also lead the league in players with “dad games.” Trying to define what exactly a “dad” or “old man” game is isn’t easy. For some people, that means playing under the rim. For others, it involves using crafty post moves. But in general, the consensus seems to be that it means a player whose game is not reliant on athleticism.
The Jazz have plenty of those guys and it leads to some fascinating basketball. It starts with the holdovers, Hood and Gordon Hayward. Both wings are great players, and will randomly make plays that wow you. But both also utilize a very herky-jerky style of attack, especially off the pick-and-roll. Watching the duo slither around screens from Rudy Gobert and the other Jazz big men is a treat. Hood and Hayward have both seemingly mastered the skill of starting and stopping to pin defenders on their back. From there, they slowly attack the rim, letting their big man roll or setting up a shot that will draw a foul.
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It doesn’t stop with the two young wings. Utah added a ton of talent in the offseason, and many of the additions they made only add to the collective old man game.
At point guard they acquired George Hill, a willy veteran who has never really succeeded with incredible athleticism. Hill uses his veteran guile to make life miserable for opposing ball handlers, something any old man would be proud of. Offensively, he also utilizes the stop-and-start attack Hood and Hayward use, but instead of driving to the rim he often settles into the mid-range area older guys love.
On the wing, Joe Johnson joined and will undoubtedly use his old man strength to lead the Utah bench this year. That started on Tuesday, when Johnson erupted in the third quarter with C.J. McCollum guarding him. When the post-ups don’t work, Johnson will find other ways to slowly lull his opponents to sleep before getting buckets.
Most importantly to fans of old man games, Utah added Boris Diaw in the front court. Diaw is the epitome of old man game in every sense of the word. It starts with his effort — Diaw isn’t one to ever waste energy, so if he can get up and down the floor in a slow jog you can bet he will. Once Diaw does make it to the side of the floor he needs to be on, he really shines. His go-to move is a pump fake that is so slow it feels like it should never work. But it often leads to a lumbering drive into the paint unlike anything else in the league. Passes get threaded, up-and-under layups get made, and throughout it all fans can just laugh.
And that still doesn’t touch on the fact that an NBA player has a cappuccino machine at his locker. And that Utah has a player so big that he can block shots without jumping — the ultimate old man defense. Or the backup point guard who looks mostly to pass. Or the other backup point guard whose name is Shelvin.
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Utah is going to be good enough this year that no one will forget about them. Health provided, the Jazz should win 50 games and be a dangerous playoff team. Or, at least, as dangerous as a team in the Golden State Warriors’ way can be. So if you are looking for a team that is fun in ways no one else is, look no further than Utah. Because the Jazz are bringing back old man basketball, one herky-jerky, stop-and-start drive at a time.