Jazz’s Unselfishness Helps Drive Team Success

February 26th, 2021 | by Zarin Ficklin

Joe Ingles is one of several Jazz players willing to sacrifice for the team’s success. (via UtahJazz.com)

Quin Snyder’s Jazz teams have often been characterized as unselfish. Snyder famously quipped once that “The strength of the team is the team,” and that has become a rallying cry for the Jazz. Another Snyder-ism is “obvious unselfishness.”

In a league full of alpha athletes — most of whom grew up as number one options before the NBA — attaining unselfishness as a team-wide trait is both rare and fleeting. After all, literal millions of dollars are on the line. Accolades, exposure, narrative, and career progression sometimes have to be sacrificed in the name of collective success. A rising tide raises all boats, as the saying goes, but that can be hard to buy when a player is riding the pine or is compared unfavorably to similar players with more opportunity.

What is it that makes a basketball team unselfish, exactly?

Is it passing?

That’s certainly a commonly used indicator. But the Jazz are ranked 15th in total passes made per game, at 290. What about assists? The Jazz are ranked 24th, at 23.2 per game. In fact, use whatever team passing metric you want from NBA’s stats site, and the Jazz are middle-of-the-pack or lower.

Perhaps it’s more the nature of the passes made and the visual style that give’s Utah its reputation as a passing team. “The blender” is term for when the Jazz whip the ball around the perimeter, often passing up a good shot for a better shot — or even a better shot for the best shot. Sometimes this obvious unselfishness is taken too far, and the best shot is given up in the name of additional passing. We’ve seen this over-zealousness corrected to some extent this season, as Royce O’Neale and Joe Ingles fling away more willingly when open. Snyder has reframed the definition by calling passing up open shots as selfish.

Utah’s passing style seeks the best shot over selfish scoring, and we’ve seen that embodied by its stars. Donovan Mitchell used to experience bouts of tunnel vision — some perhaps by product of being Utah’s only bucket creator in some circumstances. But his game has evolved, as his drives into traffic now often result in finding an open guy with a whip-around pass to the 3-point line. Rudy Gobert still has his moments of forcing an unwieldy post move, but he’s also iumproved his passing from the paint when defenses pressure his rolls. And to Gobert’s credit, he’s pretty good about saving the offensive experimentation to non-critical moments.

There are a few statistical indicators that point to the team playing with the pass:

  • Utah’s team assists are up from 22.4 last season to 23.7
  • Ingles has the 2nd highest assist rate of his career at 25%
  • Jordan Clarkson’s assist rate is up from 10.% to 13.4%
  • Mitchell is averaging a career high 5.1 assister per game

Is it sacrifice?

The eye test shows the Jazz to be an unselfish team from their style of play. But a better indicator of their unselfishness may be what players are giving up for the team. Let’s take a look at some specific examples:

Joe Ingles

In a recent podcast, Georges Niang (who by the way, as one of the few upcoming free agents has as much a reason to chase stats as anyone) talked about his conversation with Ingles regarding sacrifice:

“I hate talking about people’s money but a lot of the guys that we brought back got taken care of … ‘Alright guys what are we going to sacrifice?’ Me and Joe Ingles talk all the time … he was like, ‘All of us are taken care of, none of us need to score 20 points or do something spectacular every night’ … We have all the pieces, now who’s going sacrifice, whether to come off the bench or passing up a good shot to get a better shot, or who’s going chase around Lou Williams all night.”

Ingles doesn’t just talk the talk. One example is how he has reached, but not exceeded his career high of 27 points seven times in his career. He does not care about his personal numbers. He does not take my-turn or heat check shots.

Joe willingly took a bench role last season. In a previous season he volunteered his starting position so Rodney Hood could start, even though Snyder didn’t take him up on the offer.

Despite this, and playing three fewer minutes per game, Ingles might be having the best season ever, with career highs 69% true shooting, 15.6 points per 36, and .191 win share per 48.

Derrick Favors

Another favorite organizational phrase is “Jazz DNA,” a reference to character, grit, and unselfishness. Few embody this as much as Derrick Favors, one of the players most beloved by the franchise in recent history. Favors has started 413 times for the Jazz, but knew that wouldn’t be his role upon returning from a year away in New Orleans. He could have signed as a starter for another team, but chose a backup role in Utah instead.

His minutes have gone down from 24.4 per game last season to just 16.4 with the Jazz. His 3.9 field goal attempts and 13.6 usage rate are both his lowest in 11 seasons.

Snyder’s new rotations pits Rudy against bench units, giving Derrick a lot of time against starting centers. And yet, Favors’ per 36 numbers are basically on par with last season. His block rate, steal rate, shooting efficiency, and win shares are all up.

At 29, Favors may not look exactly like the starting center of past years (and it’s unclear if he’s still recovering from lingering knee problems), but he still does the little things that help the Jazz win. And beyond basketball contributions, he is a steadying and humble presence in the locker room.

Rudy Gobert

Is there a player more disproportionately attacked or disrespected than Rudy Gobert? That’s a whole other article, but suffice it to say that Rudy’s value to the Jazz far outweighs the outside perception. No player sacrifices for winning at the level of Gobert. His screens, on-court communication, defensive IQ, subtle positioning, and tireless effort all contribute to success in ways that don’t show in a typical box score. The advanced stats tell a better story, where you can find Gobert in the top 10 of most catch-all metrics.

In truth, Utah’s whole system relies on Rudy’s unselfishness. He is the most prolific dunk threat in the league, already at 104 for the season, well ahead of second-place Giannis Antetokounmpo at 89. He’s by far the biggest role threat, as noted here by David Locke:

While Gobert doesn’t have a polished post game, just the threat of his dunking ability allows Utah to take the highest rate of 3-point shots in the league. In past eras, offenses often revolved around feeding big men down low. As the highest paid player on the team, Gobert could demand more post touches, but he is content using his presence as a tool (just as he does on defense).

His defensive actions that aren’t tracked in the box score are more well-documented. Plenty has been said about screen assists. Rudy’s screens are a critical part of the Jazz offense, another method of opening 3-point opportunities.

While Rudy is 2nd in the league in blocks per game, he doesn’t chase blocks as other centers do. Instead he uses his presence in the middle to dissuade shots — sometimes just standing in the paint is enough to scare away opponents. I wonder if we would see Mark Eaton-like numbers if Rudy tried (fun fact: Eaton average 5.6 blocks per game his third season).

Rudy is playing 4 fewer minutes per game compared to last season. Some of that can be contributed to the number of blowouts the Jazz have had, and some could be to give Favors more minutes. If Gobert demanded to play at least 34 minutes per game, he’d average about 16 points, 15 rebound, and 3 blocks. If Rudy demanded more touches, his numbers might resemble prime Dwight Howard years.

One last thing on Gobert: say what you want about his contracts, but he gave up money in both of his last two contracts. Even if he’s paid an incredible amount of money, that does mean something.

Donovan Mitchell

It may seem counter-intuitive to include a top ten usage player in a discussion about unselfishness. Mitchell has been unfairly characterized as a chucker in past seasons. While he’s worked on choosing when to score and when to pass, it was more a matter of necessity that he shot so frequently in previous Jazz iterations. The truth is that all teams need volume scorers, and Mitchell is Utah’s primary option.

Donovan’s assists are at a career high, and we’ve seen the game slow down for him. The highlight hook passes have been a joy to watch.

But Mitchell’s assist rate and passing ability are more a function of his basketball growth than a movement on a selfishness spectrum.

Here’s where Donovan’s character shines through: if he makes the All-NBA team this season, he stands to make an extra $30 million over the next five years. While Mitchell has shown a clear improvement from last season, his counting stats aren’t dramatically increased or as gaudy as those from other star guards.

He’s currently playing 33.5 minutes per game. He could demand to play closer to 36 minutes like Zach LaVine, Damian Lillard, or Nikola Jokic. If so, he’d average about 26 or 27 points per game.

He currently takes just under 20 field goal attempts per game. He could demand to take closer to 24 like Bradley Beal. If so, he’d average 28 or 29 points per game.

Or he could simply demand the offense be centered around him like the James Harden Rockets. Harden has had a usage as high as 40% and minutes as a high as 38 per game. This isn’t to say that Mitchell would be as efficient as some of those players, but it wouldn’t be an outlandish thing for him to ask the organization — particularly during his contract negotiation.

Instead, we’ve seen Mitchell start some games with only a few field goals in the first half. He’s focused on winning, and he knows that the ball will be in his hands during crunch time. Mitchell has a legit monetary case to push for higher counting stats — and those counting stats may very well matter when award season hits, as the guard competition is very tough. But he’s shown that winning is his highest priority.

Unselfishness is paying dividends

I could continue with player-by-player sacrifices, but it’s clear the whole team has bought in. And it’s also clear that Jazz players are enjoying it. Tony Jones’s excellent piece from The Athletic included this quote from Mike Conley:

“.. it’s been so much fun being a part of a team like this that is so unique. We play so unselfishly, and we have a defensive mindset and a physical mentality.

“To do that, you have to have nine or 10 guys that all make plays for each other and are all unselfish. It’s funny because we have been so versatile this season that I have struggled to figure out how to scout us. I never had to think about that for one of my teams.”

Antetokounmpo echoed this when asked about the Jazz: “It just looks fun. Like when I watch them play, it looks fun, it looks easy. It looks simple. For sure, they look like us last year, and man, when you’re at that point and you’re playing with that confidence, you’re hard to beat for sure.”

It must be fun way to play (and we’ll see if the play style attracts any free agents from the buyout market), but it’s also a lot of fun to watch. The Jazz are the top team in the league. Most Jazz players have improved upon last season and several are having career years. Whether this team does ultimately make a deep playoff run or not, it will remain as one of the most enjoyable teams to root for.

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