Highs and Lows Define 2018-19 For Trio of Jazz Starters

January 30th, 2019 | by Tyler Crandall

Rubio and two of his peers in the starting lineup are responsible for some of Utah’s best individual performances of the year — and some of the worst. (David Sherman via utahjazz.com)

Even good players struggle now and then over the course of 82 games. In the case of a trio of Utah Jazz starters, they’ve particularly found themselves riding that roller coaster of inconsistency, with scintillating individual performances at one end of the spectrum — and the occasional dud at the other.

The Twitter feed for prominent stats site Basketball-Reference.com offers NBA fans some fun and interesting stats they might not have thought to look up. The account recently responded to a fan’s question about the worst player performances of 2018-19 by highlighting their Game Score metric for assessing overall production. And a glimpse at the bottom 100 Game Scores by high-minute players featured a few Jazz players. Budding star Donovan Mitchell had a rough performances at Indiana that came in as the 57th worst by Game Score, and Joe Ingles had the 73rd worst against Toronto. Starting point guard Ricky Rubio appeared on the list four times, with the 29th, 62nd, 63rd and 80th worst performances this year.

The stat isn’t a tell-all, and there’s a lot it doesn’t account for, like defense, or the value of players putting pressure on the defense. It basically just measures box score outcomes. Still, seeing 60 percent of Utah’s starting five on this list got me thinking about these three and their seasons so far.

It’s not that appearing on this list isn’t a hugely shameful occurrence. Perennial All-Stars like Klay Thompson and Kyle Lowry have also had bottom-100 games, as have Blake Griffin, CJ McCollum and rookie standout Luka Doncic. Good players occasionally have bad games. And Rubio, Mitchell and Ingles have also been responsible for some of the Jazz’s highest individual Game Score performances. That Utah’s starting perimeter squad shows up at both ends of the spectrum signals just how up-and-down their seasons have been through 51 games. 

Rubio had some rough games to start the year. And pointing out that four of the bottom 80 high-minute performances belong to him doesn’t really do him any favors. With that said, all four of  these games came in 2018. In fact, only one of Rubio’s 16 worst games this season (as measured by this metric) have come since the new year.

Of course, Rubio missed six January games due to injury, and so far has appeared in only eight games this month. In those eight games, he has had a largely positive impact, despite shooting just 28 percent from three. He has averaged 13.6 points and 4.8 assists this month, though his minutes have been reduced and a higher scoring and playmaking load has been placed on Mitchell. That’s true even when Rubio and Mitchell are in the game together, so the numbers kinda make sense.

Other than some incredible play against Minnesota, he hasn’t really had any breakout games in January, either. But that’s okay. He hasn’t looked like a star, but he’s actually looked solid in his time on the floor. 

Mitchell himself also made the bottom 100 games list, although he has already turned things around. There isn’t much more to be said about his turnaround other than what he presciently tweeted heading into 2019: 

Since that tweet, he has delivered four of his best five performances of the year, and he’s averaging an eye-popping 28, 5 and 4. So we won’t spend a lot of time on Mitchell here.

A few weeks back, I wrote about Ingles’ shooting slump. Since then, the team is player better on the whole, but Joe’s shooting hasn’t exactly returned to form, which is basically what I predicted. I noted that his monthly career splits show that January has consistently been his worst month. That holds true so far this month where Joe Ingles is shooting 29.6 percent from behind the arc. This would be a career low month for him unless he goes berserk and doesn’t miss in Wednesdays game against the Blazers.

There’s no hard-hitting analysis for why it’s been so poor but at this point we can only hope that February, and perhaps a long vacation with his family over the All-Star Break, turns things around. Of course, Joe continues to contribute in a variety of ways besides just shooting, and the Jazz continue to win.

All three will continue to have the occasional off nights. But Utah can certainly benefit by having the trio limit the ups and downs and deliver consistent performances over their final 31 games. 

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