Can Butler Claw His Way To Rotation Role After Solid Preseason?

Butler was aggressive in the preseason, even against the defense of Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday (Chris Gardner via utahjazz.com)

Jazz guard Jared Butler’s stellar preseason has fans of the franchise mentally rearranging the rotation to try to find the rookie a regular role. Guard minutes on this particular roster, however, are pretty hard to come by.

Butler led the Jazz — and all NBA rookies — in preseason scoring per game, but his impressive exhibition stint goes beyond the counting stats. He looked under control, he didn’t get sped up by NBA-level defenders, and he showed off quite a bit of his bag. He averaged 18.0 points per contest in this three outings — he sat out one — and also appeared capable of setting the table for others with his 4.3 assists. The rookie looks ready to impact NBA games positively, and that’s an impressive statement for someone drafted 40th overall.

But how much opportunity will the Baylor product have right away? That answer is a bit complicated on a roster with two All-Star guards and a reserve backcourt that features the two best sixth men of 2020-21.

To say that Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley Jr. are ensconced as starters is an understatement. Mitchell is on the verge of megastardom, and Conley was one of the NBA’s most positively impactful players a season ago, a top 20 player by metrics like 538’s RAPTOR, ESPN’s RPM and Dunks and Threes’ Estimated Plus Minus.

Reigning Sixth Man of the Year award winner Jordan Clarkson and his runner-up Joe Ingles both operate primarily as ball-handling guards off the bench. Ingles is 6’8″, but he’s much closer spiritually to being a point guard than a big wing the Jazz would ever want to have wrestle with NBA 4s as a regular part of his job description. Put another way, his role is much closer to Conley’s than it is to Royce O’Neale’s or Bojan Bogdanovic’s. He is a guard, on both ends of the floor, even if he is packaged like a forward.

Generally, the Jazz play virtually every meaningful minute with two to three ball handling guards, one or two big wing types whose primary roles are to shoot open shots and guard beefier bodies, and a single diving big at center. Here are the players they have to fill each of those three roles, listed in order of 2020-21 NBA minutes per game:

• Guards: Mitchell (33.4), Conley (29.4), Ingles (27.9), Clarkson (26.7), Trent Forrest (10.1), Elijah Hughes (3.6), Butler (R)
• Big Wings: O’Neale (31.6), Bogdanovic (30.8), Rudy Gay (21.6), Eric Paschall (17.4), Oni (9.6), Malik Fitts?¹ (R)
• Roll/Anchor Bigs: Rudy Gobert (30.8), Hassan Whiteside (15.2), Udoka Azubuike (3.8)

Those groupings are based on role, not size. O’Neale and Oni are guard-sized, but not guys the Jazz will ever have directing traffic or running pick-and-rolls, and they often guard bigger bodies so that teammates like Ingles and Mitchell won’t have to. Bogey can handle in a pinch, but most of the plays where he creates his own shot come as a second-side creator or when the Jazz have created a mismatch for him. 

It seems from Butler’s early progress that leapfrogging past Hughes and Forrest on the depth chart is doable — in fact, it likely has happened already. But he still has four solid, impactful NBA guards in front of him.

And by the way, it’s still not a sure thing that he’s ready to impact a contender. Every exhibition season features rookies who play well in these less competitive contests, only to fade into their team’s deep benches for the season. But even if we assume that Butler’s command of the game as a preseason scorer and facilitator will translate, there’s no clear answer as to how he get onto the court.

One option is to play with three ball-handling guards, but of course Quin Snyder already does that quite often, and that’s partially how he got the quartet we referenced above all over 26 minutes per game. Their combined 117.4 minutes mean that Utah’s cup was already running over the 96 available nightly minutes at the 1 and 2, and that they were playing nearly half the game (21.4 minutes, although that of course doesn’t factor in games missed by one of the four guards due to injury) with one of those players spilling into the 3. Adding to those 21.4 minutes with even just a small role for Butler in guard-heavy lineups would leave all of O’Neale, Bogey and Gay fighting for just 50-60 leftover minutes at the forward spots. 

You can see why Snyder usually runs with a 9-man rotation; it’s hard to find meaningful minutes for 10, even on a roster with some positional versatility.

Another option some have brought up: simply slide Ingles to the 4 more often. He’s 6’8″ after all. But again, the problem there is that it further eats into the minutes that O’Neale, Bogey and Gay might play. Plus, if you look at how Snyder has historically used Ingles, there’s very little evidence that he believes Ingles can be a 4 in anything beyond quick change-up type scenarios. In the entire 2020-21 season, Ingles played just 17 total possessions where he was the nominal power forward. For 12 of those 17, the smaller Oni was on the court with him to help line up defensively. Snyder just doesn’t use Ingles as a stretch four. 

Instead, the most likely scenario is that Butler begins the season in sort of an on-deck role, the 10th man in a 9-man rotation, meaning he’ll step in any time a guard is hurt, needs rest, or gets into foul trouble. Oni filled that role last season, but since he’s not a ball handler, the Jazz found themselves a little light on facilitators in those moments where he stepped in for one of the four main creators. The effect of that ball handling dearth was especially palpable in the Clippers series. Conley was out, Mitchell’s movements were limited, Ingles doesn’t necessarily thrive going 1-on-1 against switches, and Clarkson is famously a high-variance possession user. As a result, the Jazz ran into problems scoring at times throughout the series, which coupled with their well-documented defensive troubles to open the door for L.A. to come back in the series.

If Butler is that next guard up, the Jazz could have good creation ability even when a player or two needs a night off. But they’ll have to make sure Butler doesn’t get frustrated with a role that means he plays some nights and other nights does not. And he’ll have to make sure he stays engaged enough with game plans and scouting reports to perform well on the nights he’s called upon.

There is one other way Butler could see his role get bigger as the season goes along, and it’s something our Zarin Ficklin recently hinted at: if he’s really that ready, Jazz brass might feel more freedom to consider trades that would involve a current rotation player. Frankly, that doesn’t feel like something a contender should do unless they’re 100% convinced that the trade return represents an upgrade AND 100% sold on Butler’s ability to soak up the consequently available minutes. But it’s one way things could unfold if Butler is simply too good to be denied playing time.

If Butler flat-out forces his way into the rotation at some point, that’s a good thing. The Jazz’s backcourt rotation is one of the best in the league, so if he’s good enough in year one to usurp minutes from that impressive guard corps, it would mean he’s on a pretty special path. But that shouldn’t necessarily be the measure of success in his first pro season. A lot of really special players couldn’t have played their way past the likes of Clarkson and Ingles as rookies. 

That’s why it’s more likely he’ll be a backup to the backups. He’ll be called upon here and there when another guard needs a break. If he’s as good as advertised, Snyder may be more willing to rest a regular in a random game along the way, too. In the meantime Butler will be encouraged to improve through practice and individual work so that he can take over for someone on that list as age forces one or more of Utah’s starry guard crew into a natural diminuendo in the coming years. A lot of really great careers have started that way, with a player waiting and learning behind some talented mentors at his same position. 

And when Butler’s opportunities to shine do present themselves this season, here’s hoping the rookie can look as solid as he did in the preseason.

Quarter Notes

Here are some random quick thoughts on other Jazz and NBA storylines.

Crystal ball: Forecasting site 538 has released its playoff and title odds for all 30 teams, and it’s aligned with this writer’s macro view of the Jazz: that they’re once again going to be elite, a favorite for a top-2 seed, and one of at least a half dozen teams to go into the season feeling like they have a tangible shot at a ring.

Fitts in the plan? The Jazz cut three players from camp deals on Thursday, then signed Nino Johnson, likely to secure “affiliate player” rights for Johnson to play with the SLC Stars this G League season. But Fitts, as we briefly mentioned above, survived all of that movement. Fitts is on an “Exhibit 10″ deal, which gives the Jazz the option of converting his non-guaranteed contract to a 2-way slot. The fact that he’s still around makes it seem likely that he’ll get Utah’s second 2-way contract, and that feels like the right call. Fitts is 6’8”, athletic and can shoot the ball. That combination is pretty intriguing. He also has had moments where he has looked good defensively in the preseason. 

DeAndre Deal? The Suns are essentially West co-favorites along with the Jazz, so it is noteworthy that they’re still at an impasse with DeAndre Ayton in extension negotiations. If they’re unable to reach a deal with the young center, could it cast a shadow over their 2021-22 season? They still have the weekend to make something happen, but are reportedly unwilling to go all the way to the max for the former No. 1 overall pick. Regardless of whether you view Ayton as a max player, that’s an interesting one to follow as it relates to the dynamics of a team whose fortunes this season will definitely be tied in some ways to Utah’s.

Roster moves: Rosters have to be trimmed to 14-15 standard contracts (with up to two 2-ways) by Monday, which means we’ll see a lot of waivers over the weekend. If a player the Jazz secretly love as a project gets waived, that could change their plans with the last few roster spots. It’s not entirely likely, but it also didn’t seem likely in 2014, when the Jazz had to cut a player with guaranteed salary in order to submit a waiver claim on a 27-year-old rookie named Joseph Howarth Ingles. That, um, worked out for them. I’m sure that the detail-oriented front office already has a list of players on camp deals who they like as much as or more than players currently at the back of their roster. Just something to keep an eye on. A few teams — Houston, Charlotte, Dallas, San Antonio and Memphis — have more than 15 players with at least partial guarantees for the season, which means at some point they might try to give away a player to a team that owns a trade exception. The Jazz have the ability to absorb a small contract, but again, I think they’ll only do it if it’s a player they’ve secretly coveted all along.