Determining Ingles’ Place Among the League’s Best SFs

Small forward is the NBA’s starriest position. Where does Ingles rank at a position that includes LeBron, KD, Kawhi and the Greek Freak? (Photo from ESPN.com)

It takes talent to make it into the NBA, but it also takes luck. Joe Ingles has enjoyed plenty of both.

Ingles went undrafted, bounced around leagues in Australia, Spain and Israel, did the summer league thing, was cut, and finally found a home in Utah where he has flourished with his sweet three-point shooting and his defensive focus.

So where does Slow-Mo, a guy who fans jokingly identify as the guy who looks like he comes from your YMCA pick-up game, rank among the NBA’s small forwards? Jazz GM Dennis Lindsey believes Ingles is near the top, and Ingles does, too. Do the numbers back it up?

“If you said that to the casual NBA observer, that would be heresy,” said Lindsey about Ingles as a top-10 small forward. “But we know what we have.”¹

Let’s explore exactly where Ingles fits into the tiers of small forward talent.

Tier One: Small Forward Megastars

A handful of the very best players in the entire NBA slot in at small forward. If every single NBA player was lined up against a chain link fence at recess, who would you take first? Several of the league’s top small forwards also happen to the be the guys you would build a team around. 

Easy.

LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Kawhi Leonard.

James and Durant are 1A and 1B in terms of NBA talent, while Giannis is stretching his long frame into top-five consideration. Then there’s Leonard, a Finals MVP and, when healthy, one of the best two-way players in the league.

These fellas are simply a class above.

“There are certain players that when they are on the floor make the whole greater than the sum of the parts,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “Joe Ingles ‘the part’ has gotten better, and then Joe Ingles ‘the teammate’ makes other people better.”

Tier Two: Superstars with Two-Way Talent

Jimmy Butler is close, but not close enough, to those guys previously mentioned. He’s an All-Star but not necessarily a guy you would build a team around (see: Chicago Bulls). He’s an excellent second star (or is he the third star in Philly?) that can play both ways and come through in the clutch. He’s good; perhaps a top-fifteen or top-twenty player.

The same goes for Paul George.

“There just hasn’t been anything that he’s not willing to do for the team. That’s where he’s found his game. He’s found his game making the team better when he’s on the floor. The things that he’s been able to do to make the team better have continued to multiply,” said Coach Snyder.

Tier Three: High Value Borderline All-Stars

The talent of this group is a notch above the perennial All-Stars above, but these players are still high-value players who impact winning.Here we can plug in players like Kris Middleton, Jayson Tatum, Josh Richardson and Gordon Hayward (when healthy).

Middleton is a vital piece of Milwaukee’s potential and a near-perfect pair alongside the Greek Freak (wait, which is the small forward then?). Tatum also raises the ceiling of his team; the Celtics go as far as he does. He started beasting in the playoffs last season after a solid rookie year, but his year two has produced a slight slump. Nonetheless, he is really good and will rise this list as he grows up.

“We wanted Joe. We wanted Joe and Renae and the Ingles family,” said GM Dennis Lindsey. “We might have been criticized for the amount and the length of the contract, but we trusted him. We knew the type of person that he is, the type of leader that he is, how intelligent he is.”

Richardson and Hayward are interesting comps for Ingles. Currently, Richardson is on a tear where he averages 20.5 points per game and shoots 42 percent from three. He is a focal point of Miami’s offense and was untouchable when Butler trades were floating around. For now, he’s ahead of Utah’s #2.

Hayward, on the other hand, is struggling to find his footing since he… nearly lost his foot. He is shooting just 30 percent from the field, averaging 10 points a night, and is an offensive box-score -1.2 which is a negative offensive contribution per 100 possessions above (or in this case below) a league average player.

When healthy, Hayward is an All-Star caliber player, straddling this tier and the PG/Butler tier above. But for this season? Not even close.

“He’s a winning basketball player,” Gobert says of Ingles. “He’s the kind of guy you want on your team when you want to win championships. He knows how to do a lot of things that help you win that you don’t see on stats. He’s a very unselfish guy, too, so it’s great for our team.

“He’s just a smart basketball player with a big mouth and an Australian accent.”

Tier Four: The Remaining Starting SFs

With those 11 out of the way, Ingles has a case to be compared favorably to just about anybody remaining, in terms of current impact. Otto Porter is a do-everything guy and a constant off-ball threat. Robert Covington is an awesome 3-and-D guy who plays hard. 

Behind those two, Harrison Barnes is a bit one-dimensional, and sometimes hides from the spotlight. Brandon Ingram has star potential, but is not quite there yet. Andre Iguodala, while not a starter anymore, closes games and probably belongs in this tier despite being past his prime.

Among these players, Jingles boasted the highest effective field goal percentage last year while responsible for the second-best defensive win share and defensive- rating behind Covington (then with the Philadelphia 76ers).

Stat after stat showed Ingles was above many on this list in multiple categories last year, whether it was from passing in the pick-and-roll or scoring in transition. He broke the Jazz single season record for made threes and became just one of three players ever to post an 11-4-4 line while shooting 43.9% from deep (Steph Curry, Jeff Hornacek; minimum of 100 three-point attempts).

Without Hayward handling the ball, Ingles had to really refine himself as a crafty scorer at the hoop, but also in initiating the pick-and-roll and making the right passes. A Bleacher Report article noted last year that only nine players listed at 6-foot-8 or taller averaged more dimes.

The other notch that Ingles gets to tally by his name is his postseason 2017 resume. When you go head-to-head with Paul George, you get kudos. Not only did Ingles match George’s shooting, but he played him straight up on defense while getting under his skin, too.

Consider:

You’d best believe Joe Ingles is getting his very own playoff mixtape. pic.twitter.com/Nl0hyt7T7i

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) May 5, 2018

During the first quarter of this season, Ingles is slipping behind Porter and Covington based on some advanced metrics. Even Ingles’ bread and butter — his 3-point shooting — is down to 38%, which has allowed RoCo and Porter to close the gap on True Shooting. Ingles owns the second best defensive rating of the trio, behind Covington. He’s the best playmaker of this group by far, as evidenced by an assist rate that leaps and bounds ahead of the other two. 

It’s worth noting that part of Ingles’ struggles this season has been due to the lack of playmaking and playmakers on the Jazz roster. Ricky Rubio’s horrific shooting percentages so far and the Jazz’s inclusion of two non-shooting bigs in the starting five help explain why Ingles’ spot-up shooting has declined. The floor isn’t being stretched, defenses are different against Donovan Mitchell’s penetration, and Ingles has stopped knocking down clean looks like when the season originally started. For good or for bad, Ingles is the only Jazzman playing regular minutes who is shooting better than 35 percent from deep.

Let’s assume that Ingles’ shooting and overall production evens out to his norm or career averages. Many around the league would still likely opt for Covington over Jingles because of his age. Covington plays ruthless defense and knocks down enough deep shots to be an integral part of an offense. How he continues to mesh with Minnesota will be worth monitoring, but he may have the slight edge for now. Factoring in contract value favors Joe, though: Covington’s four-year deal pays him $62 million compared to Joe’s $52 million price tag.

(Note: The remaining starting 3s in the NBA include Taurean Prince, Joe Harris, Nic Batum, Justin Holiday, Cedi Osman, Juancho Hernangomez (the Nuggets were starting guard Will Barton at the 3 until he got hurt), Glenn Robinson III, James Ennis, Bojan Bogdanovic, Danilo Gallinari, Kyle Anderson, Jonathan Isaac, E’Twaun Moore, TJ Warren, Moe Harkless, Rudy Gay, Iman Shumpert and whoever we’re calling the Knicks’ small forward. They most recently started Mario Hezonja there.)

“Oh, I am. Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Ingles responded, when asked if he feels he’s the best. “The numbers I’ve shot, the percentages, they obviously are what they are and people are going to dissect everything but, I honestly feel like they’re all going to go in when I shoot the ball.”

“When I feel like it’s my shot within the flow of the offense and getting in any rhythm, I feel like I should make every one of them,” he continued.

Joe’s Place

LBJ, KD, the Greek Freak, Kawhi, Butler, PG-13, Middleton with the Bucks, the promising Tatum in Boston, and the surprising and underrated Richardson in South Beach are all ahead of Ingles when it comes to the small forward competition.

The argument then shifts to the Ingles-Covington-Porter tier, with Hayward lurking in the background as he tries to find his former self.

Depending on where you put Ingles relative to Covington, Porter and the rehabbing Hayward, that lands the Australian somewhere between 10th and 13th best SF. That’s a pretty impressive place in the pecking order of NBA small forwards for a guy who was a waiver claim four years ago. He is a gifted and hard-working NBA player. He’s good, he’s a specialist in many different areas, and he is a locker-room influence teams crave.

It’s no secret, and requires no stats, to say that the Jazz are not the same without Ingles in their core.