The Favors Factor Explains Why Utah Passed On Adding a 3-and-D Wing

Favors rejoins Gobert to give the Jazz 48 minutes of solid rim protection, which changes what Utah needs defensively from its wings. (AP Photo/Joel Auerbach)

“Geez, the Jazz front office sure whiffed by forgetting to pick up a 3-and-D player.”

Pretty much every offseason involves Twitter fans and couch pundits criticizing (or.. Twitter-cizing? Eh?) decisions made by GMs who, in the case of the Utah Jazz and most other organizations, rely heavily on data models and scouting and are a heckuva lot more informed than the rest of us. Typically, there’s not much to read into because there’s always the skeptics and complainers and Twitter is mostly full of both those breeds. This offseason featured plenty of of those criticisms, from people upset about the Jazz using a first-round pick to select Udoka Azubuike for a deep bench role, to the dollar figures handed out on new deals. But far and away, the winner for most frequent complaint is: “Why didn’t the Jazz prioritize adding a 3-and-D wing?” We’ll tackle that a few other questions here.

Somehow, it became a “fact” that the Jazz’s biggest offseason need was a defensive wing. So much so that fans were shouting for the Jazz to sign Kris Dunn, a 6-foot-3 guard and career 30% shooter from the three-point line. Was it a mistake to not look for a defensive wing, either on the free agent market or via the draft? What are the Jazz thinking?

It’s easy to see why this became a popular Jazz Twitter opinion. The current way of the NBA world is to sign your stars, maybe a rim-runner, and some 3-and-D wings to fill out the roster. However, elite 3-and-D wings are at a premium right now, leading teams to settle for “3 and some D” or “D but no 3”, such as some Jazz fans clamoring for Dunn. 

Which leads to my assertion, which we will dig into here: not only is it okay that the Jazz missed out on picking up a defensive wing — it was probably the intended strategy all along. 

3-and-D wings are the currency of a position-less NBA

A wing player is generally defined as someone playing the 2 or 3, but in an increasingly “positionless” world, bigger wings log plenty of minutes at the 4, too.

Already, the Jazz have Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic and Georges Niang who play minutes across the wing positions and the stretch four spot, plus Donovan Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson who both spend time between the 1 and the 2. Those two are both leveraged mostly as shot creators regardless of the spot on the court they are filling. 

As for Royce, Joe and Bojan… three point shooting? Check. Defense? Check (Bojan is more like 3-and-mostly-OK-on-D, but good enough). When it comes to the D-and-no-3 players, the Jazz have mostly moved on from that prototype, though some fans do miss having Dante Exum around for his good individual defense. (Also, those of you clamoring for Dunn better also be those who never wanted Exum to leave in the first place, because Dunn essentially would have filled that same void.)

Problems  certainly arise if any of Utah’s three stronger defensive wings are out for a game. Because then you end up with lineups that ask a lot of Clarkson and Niang defensively, which can be problematic. But overall, the Jazz were net positive last season whenever Rudy Gobert shared the court with either Clarkson, Niang, or both. However what’s interesting is that there are really not very many lineups which featured both Gobert and Niang. So it may not even be fair to view him in comparison to other wings because he rarely played with Rudy. 

Why the emphasis on Niang and Clarkson, especially if you consider that Niang may not get much playing time this season if everyone is healthy? Because Niang and Clarkson represent the worst wing defenders out of Utah’s potential wing players, at least among those expected to vie for rotational roles. The reason this is important is because of another major difference between last season’s roster and this season’s: Derrick Favors.

The Favors Factor

In two seasons prior to the 2019-20 campaign, the Jazz were considered an elite defensive team, ranking 1st or 2nd for Defensive Rating in each of those seasons. Gobert, a shot-blocking rim protector known as The Stifle Tower, had a lot to do with that. He is considered a “defense unto himself” because of the strategy employed by the team. Wing and perimeter players funnel opposing players directly into the two-time Defensive Player of the Year. They do this by rushing the corners, fighting their way over and through screens, and playing great help defense. Rudy drops into the paint and deters drivers from entering. Teams attempt far fewer shots at the rim against the Jazz than against most other teams.

Of course, Gobert was still there scaring away ball handlers in the 2019-20 season as well, but Utah’s defensive ranking slipped all the way to 13th. There were other roster differences between those elite defensive team’s and last year’s squad, but importantly, the Jazz missed having their backup center minutes filled by another strong rim protector in Favors.

This shot frequency table for Jazz opponents from Cleaning the Glass is fascinating. 

Jazz Opponent Shot *Frequency* by Location

The percentages here show the location shot frequency at which shots were attempted against the Jazz. Jazz have been 5th best at the rim frequency. This means that opponents are pretty much avoiding shots near the basket, largely because of Rudy. And if the Jazz funnel opposing players to the paint, with Rudy there, they miss a lot of those shots because they get altered. Eventually they start settling for midrange shots instead of challenging Rudy. The solid #5 ranking shows that the defense did a great job of deterring in the paint, with or without great rim protection for all 48 minutes. But check out the following. 

Jazz Opponent Shot *Accuracy* by Location

While the Jazz continued to funnel players to the paint at the same rate, their rank at actually impacting opponents’ percentages at the rim dropped from top 10 to below average. Why? The loss of Favors and his backup 5 minutes meant Utah had to try to protect the rim with the likes of Ed Davis and Tony Bradley. This one issue is the primary reason the Jazz defense dropped so significantly this past season. It also highlights how important a solid rim protector is for the way the Jazz play. This is also the issue the Jazz front office chose to focus on resolving, by signing Favors and drafting Azubuike. Signing another 3-and-D wouldn’t have addressed this in any way.

This strategy still requires smart defenders who can do certain things in the team defense construct, but for defense purposes the guys Utah has are plenty good when the back line of defense is firm. Even if they get beat on the wings, the ball handler has to face Gobert or Favors. This defensive system allows and encourages the wings to play very aggressively at the 3-point line, denying clean looks at all costs because they know they have a solid paint protector behind them.

The challenge for the Jazz’s wing defenders last season came when they developed the habit of relying on the big guy, and then suddenly instead of having Gobert behind them, it was Bradley. Bradley isn’t even a close facsimile when it comes to defense. Favors is. With the latter back on the floor, Utah will be able to run its preferred defensive system all game, with 48 minutes of elite to solid rim protection. There’s a real chance the Jazz’s elite team defense — 1st in 2017-18, 2nd in 2018-19 — returns to that level.

Think of it this way: the Jazz went from 2nd to 13th after losing Favors. Getting him back should be enough to ensure the Jazz can be a top-5 defense again if the wings simply do their job.

Prediction: the Jazz will get back to being an elite defense this season, but this time around will have the offensive punch from Mike Conley, Bogdanovic and Clarkson that they didn’t have a couple of seasons ago. This team should be a top 5 in defense and a top 10 in offense.  As Dennis Lindsey put it earlier, we’re going to see the Jazz take the best of their identify from 2-3 seasons ago, and combine it with the best of last seasons Jazz.