Trading Joe Ingles Is Complicated

Joe Ingles is in some ways an extension of Utah coach Quin Snyder in the locker room, which is part of how he brings unique cultural value to the Jazz. (Rick Egan, the Salt Lake Tribune)

Whenever the Jazz’s Quin Snyder calls a timeout, he walks across to the free throw line area to discuss potential adjustments with his assistants before entering the team huddle. For 60 seconds or so of each timeout, the players essentially coach themselves — they share what they’re seeing, compare notes on what is or isn’t working, and otherwise redirect their energy as a group before the coach steps in with instruction.

It’s always interesting to pay attention to what happens in that minute of players-only discussion: the body language, the tenor of the conversation, and who is most vocal. Ask anybody who regularly has line of sight to witness those chats, and they’ll tell you the same thing: Joe Ingles is almost always centrally involved in the dialogue. Whether he has been in the game or not, he’s often the first guy to step in and start the conversation about the ways the Jazz can adjust their execution.

It’s just one of the ways Ingles’ personality, smarts and emotional energy are stamped all over the Jazz’s current identity. He’s practically a part-time assistant coach, but also a playmaker, catch-and-shoot sniper, defensive pest, lead trash talker, and spiritual advisor.

It’s also an example of why the concept of “value” is pretty fluid when you’re trying to build a championship-worthy roster and culture.

It’s clear by now that Ingles’ name is going to be tossed around between now and February 10, the NBA’s deadline for in-season trades. It’s an increasingly popular view that the Jazz — at 29-15 after losing six of their nine games in 2022 — need a rotation-altering move in order to fulfill their championship aspirations. And Ingles’ age, uncertain future, and declining stats combine to make him an obvious candidate for trade machine musings. 

But 29 other GMs are also aware of his age, his uncertain future, and his declining stats. His value on the trade market might be lower now than at any point since he first ascended to the core. The list of interested teams might be relatively short, and their interest in Ingles might be more narrowly defined around a couple of specific skill sets or roles, rather than the outsized impact he has had as a jack-of-all-trades in Utah. Potential suitors also know that he’s a short-term solution: his contract expires this summer.

Bottom line: trading Joe Ingles right now is complicated. Let’s look at a few reasons why.

His value to the Jazz — on the court and culturally — might be higher than his value to other teams

The specific role Ingles is tasked with is a pretty eclectic and interesting mix of things. At present he’s mostly a spot shooter who runs a handful of pick-and-rolls per game, but he has often been asked to be more of a facilitator, to guard opposing teams’ creators, and much more.

For example, his ability to fill in as the primary playmaker helped the Jazz hang onto the No. 1 seed last year despite being without Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley for nearly a month.

He’s also a bit of a Swiss Army defender: his most common matchups last year on defense have included big bodies like Luka Doncic, Jaylen Brown and Kyle Kuzma, but also smaller scoring guards like CJ McCollum and Dejounte Murray. He’s a chameleon who helps the Jazz match up, especially when they need to find a hiding place for a smaller (or less capable) defender.

And then there’s the cultural thing. 

It does matter that Ingles is a clubhouse leader, someone who is vocal and honest, but also keeps things light with his constant comic relief. He and Rudy Gobert are the only Jazz players who have been in Utah throughout Snyder’s tenure, so he has an almost unparalleled sense of the coach’s systems, structures and broader philosophy. (Anecdotally, informed folks also tell me he spends more time talking with Snyder throughout the course of a game than anybody, even when he’s on the sidelines. To say he’s aligned at this point with what Snyder wants is an understatement.)

That stuff matters. It might not be THE reason not to trade him, but it’s important. There’s a reason Udonis Haslem will be singing Miami Heat contracts until the asteroid hits: it can be hard to replicate the locker room impact of someone with that much institutional knowledge and cultural connectivity.

All of that might make Ingles the consummate example of a player who is more valuable in his current ecosystem than he is to the marketplace.

His contract, age and production limit his market

Ingles’ stats have declined across the board this year.

Let’s also be honest about this: Ingles’ value isn’t exactly at a high point.

During an impressive 4-year peak from the time Gordon Hayward left Utah through the end of last season, Ingles posted per-36 averages of 14-5-6 (rounded) and was also one of the league’s most efficient perimeter players at 61.5% true shooting and 42% from deep. He did all that while taking on tough defensive assignments and filling in at multiple spots across the depth chart.

This year, his production has dipped to 11-4-5, with the lowest true shooting (.576) and 3-point percentage (37%) since he became a major rotation piece. 

Throw in his contract status and it starts to get even harder to imagine a huge market rush.

Anybody interested in acquiring him for actual basketball reasons — to try tap into that 14-5-6 player — is only going to get him for two months (plus the playoffs). Such a short-term rental on a 34-year-old likely only appeals to win-now teams, and what contender is going to surrender a difference maker to one of their primary competitors for a spot on the dais? Teams like that are looking to add talent, not part with a major piece.

The other option is to find a team at the opposite end of the competitive spectrum: a GM that’s ready to pack it in might take Ingles’ expiring contract as filler attached to some assets in order to get off of a salary commitment to a useful player.

But once again, that’s not as straightforward as it sounds in theory. Because of the expanded format with play-in spots, not a lot of teams are in pure “seller” mode. In fact, only four teams are more than four games out of the play-in range in their conference (Ind, Det, Orl, Hou). And even if one of them decides to part with a good player to create more financial flexibility going forward, the Jazz still have to package together enough forward-looking assets to beat 28 other teams’ best offers. That’s an area where they’re light right now. None of their young guys have earned rotation roles, and they’re limited on picks they can trade.

The bottom line here: Ingles is only going to appeal to certain teams in certain scenarios. That limits his market and makes it harder for the Jazz to bring back a useful player in return.

He still helps the Jazz win

When we watch games, it’s impossible to notice every movement on every play. With 10 variables in constant motion — plus refs, coaching, psychological factors and more — there’s literally no way we can process all of it. Even players and coaches often say, “I’ll have to watch film” when pressed for game specifics. There’s just too much to digest in a single moment of basketball. Deep in the recesses of our brain, we subconsciously take the shortcut of deciding which information is worth holding onto, versus other stuff that passes through to the cerebral discard pile. There are a lot of ways our subconscious weeds through what matters and what doesn’t, including by selecting the stuff that matches up with our preexisting beliefs: confirmation bias. We all do it. Yes, you. Me too. Everybody. That’s why it’s important to constantly check our perceptions against various sources of information and consider that we may be wrong by some matter of degrees.

We’ve all seen Ingles get beat in 1-on-1 defense. After you’ve seen it once and made mental note of it, it’s easy for your brain to recognize the next time it happens and give you a little neural reward for your rightness. Along the way, he might have also defended well five times, 10 times or 100 times, but your brain is capable of classifying those routine moments as less noteworthy since they didn’t provide evidence of the theory you are unconsciously seeking to confirm.

The reality is that by several measures, Ingles has not declined on defense anywhere near as much as the narrative suggests.

For example, the league’s tracking cameras measure the outcome on any play where Joe’s man ends the possession with a shot, free-throw trip or turnover in different play contexts. It’s not a perfect metric since it only measures the end of the play, but it’s interesting directionally, especially to the degree that a player’s performance there is pretty consistent over time. And Ingles has been consistently very good at defending play types that are important for a modern perimeter defender:

• For four straight years, Ingles held pick-and-roll ball handlers to between .79 and .86 points per possession, a very good figure. This season, he’s holding them to .67, good for the 87th percentile.
• Ingles held iso scorers to .81 two seasons ago (66th percentile), but last season allowed a stunning .46 and this season .40. That’s better than 98% of NBA defenders on that play type.
• He was well above average as a defender of spot-ups the last two seasons (.96 per possession and then .90), but this season spot shooters are scoring just .62 per possession when guarded by Ingles (97th percentile).

Play type defense by Jazz perimeter players.

Those number say he is the Jazz’s best defender across all three of those play types, which make up the majority of a modern wing’s defensive job description.

The thing about the visualization to the right is that it doesn’t even look at who each guy is guarding. That means it might inflate the performance of Jordan Clarkson, whom the Jazz mostly park on lesser offensive threats, and underrate someone who guards star players like Royce O’Neale.

In Ingles’ case, it’s pretty impressive that he rates out so well guarding P&Rs, isos and spot shooters, especially since we noted above that he regularly guards the Doncic, McCollum and Brown types.

Simply put, Ingles helps the defense more often than he weakens it — even if our brains might highlight the ones where he looks like a turnstile. The way to improve the perimeter defense probably isn’t to send away one of the only guys who clearly has the ability to impact a scorer with the ball in his hands.

Size matters

There’s also the fact the Ingles, while functionally and spiritually a guard, stands 6-foot-8. As much as the Jazz need to address the defense, they also have a small backcourt that gets overmatched at times.

If the Pistons reversed course and decided to accept the rumored package of Ingles and a pick for the 6-foot-8 Jerami Grant, then yeah, you probably have to take that deal.

But a lot of the constructions Jazz fans have been considering involve trading Ingles for a much smaller guard. If you trade Ingles for someone like Eric Gordon or Marcus Smart (both 6’3″), you leave the Jazz with the five guys under 6’5″ to man the one, two and three spots. That’s… small. Even if you think someone like Smart is capable of playing bigger than his listed height, sometimes it’s just a question of sheer physics. A bigger wing can get a good look over even a good defender when there’s a big height difference. 

Trading 6’8″ for 6’3″ is just a hard move to make in this league, especially when you’re already small across the guard and wing positions. Even trading Ingles for a Josh Richardson type (6’5″) probably just makes them too small to really bother certain opponents. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but it’s another consideration, for sure.

Slumps come and go

Perhaps the best way the Jazz could upgrade Ingles’ rotation spot is to unleash good Ingles again.

He’s undeniably slumping right now: 29% on threes in his last 14 games, and he’s had seven times as many single-digit scoring nights since the start of December (14) as games with 15-plus over the same span (2). He’s had bad defensive moments, multiple ejections, and has just generally looked surlier this season.

But here’s the thing: slumps end. And in Ingles’ case, every season tends to bring a protracted funk at some point. He closed last season with a month-long stretch of 30% shooting from outside. He had a 27% stretch for more than a month just before the pandemic paused the 2019-20 season. December-January slumps slowed him down in 2018-19 and 2017-18, and a January-February funk hit him the year before that.

And spoiler alert: each time, he bounced back just fine.

There’s also a case to be made that if the Jazz make a certain kind of deal, the resulting role shift might get Ingles back into a position where they need more of his unique potpourri of basketball skills. The Jazz’s bench units this year are playing a much less structured version of the offense, with less pick-and-roll and more early shots and attacks off the dribble. That undeniably has reduced Ingles’ role in the offense. Once a steady creation option for the Jazz because of his P&R synergy with the bigs, Ingles is now mostly a catch-and-shoot guy who runs pick-and-rolls only occasionally. Even some of the second-side creation he used to do isn’t there anymore because guys aren’t always recognizing the right passes to leverage the advantage of early screening actions.

Not even the worst shot of the night, but frustrating here how he misses the obvious pass. Don, Mike, Joe all know to make the pass to the flaring screener (Joe) who can then go into some second-side action w/ an advantage.
Instead, he takes a contested pull-up w/ :14 on clock. pic.twitter.com/elm5q56e2o

— dan c. (@danclayt0n) January 18, 2022

Ingles finished 300-plus possessions as the P&R ball handler in each of the last three seasons. Right now he’s on pace to finish the year with around half that number. He is much less involved, so it’s no wonder he has seen his stats and efficiency tick downward.

If the Jazz were to trade, say, Clarkson for a defensive specialist, then they would likely reorganize the second unit offense at least partially around Ingles’ creation ability. That increased involvement could unleash the Ingles that has been a key piece for years. Plus, another defensive wing could also ease some of his defensive burdens, since right now he routinely draws tougher assignments.

Not that this has to be a Clarkson-or Ingles decision, either. But the Jazz clearly aren’t getting the most out of Ingles’ unique skill set right now. They could change that by shifting some possessions around, or by altering the rotation some — or yes, by making a deal that makes Joe’s P&R a staple of the offense again while also solving some other defensive needs.

Let’s be clear: Joe Ingles is not off the table. There are theoretical Ingles-focused deals that Utah should absolutely consider if they materialize as real options. The Jazz are trying to win a championship, and you don’t get there by arbitrarily deciding that the guy who is firmly at seventh on your depth chart is somehow off limits.

Teams do get there, however, by making values-based decisions about what is core to their identity, shrewdly reading the market, and then making moves that are smart value plays.

Right now, trading Ingles isn’t the smart value play. It’s just not. To trade him now would be to “sell low,” and as such it’s hard to imagine too many realistic Ingles deals that would yield a real rotation upgrade.

An Ingles-centric package just won’t get them in all the same conversations as a package centered around others. And that might wind up being great news, because a plugged-in Jingles could really enhance their playoff chances anyway.