Salt City Seven: Guys We Don’t Talk About Enough, Lofty Aspirations & More

The Jazz are getting undersung contributions up and down their rotation, including from Royce O’Neale.

Every Monday during the regular season, the week here at SCH begins with the Salt City Seven: seven regular features that let us relive the biggest moments, key performances and hot issues in Jazzland from various angles. Check in every week for the quotes, stats, plays and performances that tell the stories from the last 168 hours in the world of the Jazz.

A quick dissection of a big-picture topic or burning question relevant to the week in Jazzland.

There has been no shortage of praise thrown at Utah’s big three — Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley — and everything that trio has done to vault Utah to the top of the standings. Similarly, dynamic bench scorer Jordan Clarkson gets a ton of pub for his electric style and instant offense.

Those four guys deserve every pixel that writers, tweeters and fans have employed to laud their strong seasons. But there’s also a solid chance that we’re too caught up in recognizting those flashy stories to properly praise the rest of a very solid Jazz rotation. 

Let’s fix that. This week we’re devoting the “Noteworthy” section to some little tricks and trends involving players we probably don’t talk about enough. These might seem like small things, but they make a big impact on how Utah is able to put the pieces together.

Favors’ feathery floater

Having Derrick Favors back in a Jazz uniform is fun for the fan base. It’s also great for Utah’s offense because it means they have two capable diving bigs. Favors’ repertoire includes this soft touch floater.

When a 6-foot-10 guy has that kind of teardrop in his bag, it’s a pretty impossible shot to defend. With that and his nice touch on short-roll pull-ups in the paint, Favors shoots a combined 57% percent on what Cleaning the Glass terms “short mid” shots — a figure that’s among the top sixth of NBA bigs. Defenses have to respect him there, which softens the ground for other stuff, but it’s not like this is purely sacrificial, either; at 1.14 points per play every time one of those shots go up, that’s actually bringing the efficiency of Utah’s halfcourt offense up.

Bogey’s sidestep three

For most shooters, their efficiency from deep goes down with every dribble. But I joked this past week that I feel almost more confident when Bojan Bogdanovic deploys his wicked little escape dribble to evade a lunging closeout.

That move’s not for everybody. It breaks some shooters’ rhythm and makes it harder to get into the shot with their legs. But Bogey has perfected the art. He’s actually shooting better after dribbling — 51.5% — than he does on catch-and-shoot threes (40% even). That’s insane. It’s not just because of his escape dribble; he also likes to take a single rhythm dribble often when he shoots behind a screen, and those go in at a crazy high rate. But just for kicks, I went back and manually tallied his attempts on that sidestep three: he’s 50% when he does that. So no, it wasn’t just my imagination.

O’Neale’s expanding arsenal of passes

Royce O’Neale is another poster child for a Jazz player development program that has a growing list of success stories. They never asked the 3-and-D specialist to become something he’s not, but every year Royce and the staff have identified ways he can improve around the margins, especially to benefit the flow of the offense.

Lately, it’s his passing. He makes a lot of swings around the horn as part of those Jazzgasm plays where three, four or even all five Jazz men touch the ball in quick succession. This year, he’s making some daring passes over the top of the defense because he can read where the open man will be. But the thing that impresses me the most of late is how often he’s putting the ball on the floor, breaking the paint, and then making a pass that involves reading multiple help defenders.

For a guy who plays mostly off the ball, that kind of quick mental calculation of where help is coming from displays a solid understanding of both teams’ game plans. The last one — the transition assist to Gobert — is particularly impressive. That drive isn’t part of a P&R play in set offense, so there is no fixed scheme from the D. Instead, O’Neale just has to consult his internal radar, which tells him that if he commits Dwight Powell with the drive, he’ll free up the big man, who has sprinted 94 feet after blocking the shot on the other end.

O’Neale making passes like that off the bounce is gravy for Utah’s offense, which already has an impossible number of ball handlers, shooters and good decision-makers to reckon with. Royce is playing a career-high 32 minutes per game, in part because he has the best ORtg — yes, offensive rating — of anyone on the team at 119.0.

Minivan, on the move

Georges Niang takes 75% of his shots outside the 3-point line. But about once a game, some poor, panicky defender tries to close out on his shot and instead gets to see what’s on the bumper sticker of that sweet 2008 Dodge Caravan.

He converts 65.2% of his shots inside the arc, which ranks in the top two percent of NBA forwards. That includes 70% at the rim (higher than you thought, right?) and a pretty silly 64% from floater range, per Cleaning the Glass. He particularly likes heading down the right side into a layup or floater.

Ingles dribbling ahead of the screen

When the big is back on pick-and-roll play and the ball handerl’s man goes over the screen, one option available to the handler is a quick pull-up. But when your nickname is “Slow-Mo,” you could use a little bit of extra separation to comfortably get into a shooting motion. So Joe Ingles simply throws the ball around the screen and then goes and gets it. That way, by the time he catches up to the Spalding, he’s gained a tiny extra bit of air space that he wouldn’t have had if he had only gone around the screen at a dribbler’s pace.

Long live José English.

The Jazz are getting good stuff throughout their rotation. Miye Oni and Juwan Morgan have both looked promising at both ends when they’ve been called upon to supplement this 9-man core, too. 

In their own words.

“We’re going to have to put in a lot of work, and we need to embrace that challenge. And I’d rather embrace that challenge with the Jazz because it would mean a lot more than me going somewhere else.”

-Gobert, on competing for a championship in Utah

That’s a pretty great quote for a small market fan base to hear. There was a lot to like from Gobert’s sit-down with the Athletic’s Sam Amick, so for the second straight week, we’re dedicating this space to lofty quotes by Gobert about what Utah hopes to accomplish.

“In a way, we all realize that it’s bigger than us,” the big man said elsewhere in the interview. “and that we have the opportunity to accomplish something amazing this year. So when you have that synergy in a group, and at the same time you’re enjoying every single moment, something special can happen.”

Gobert’s club sits atop the league standings and owns a top-four offense and defense outside of garbage time. They have convinced even some doubters that they are ready to be part of the contender class. But Gobert doesn’t want to stop there.

“We all realize that winning a championship would be something that’s never been done before in this franchise, so we all realize that if we all give a little more of ourselves to the team and we all sacrifice a little more, we have a chance to hopefully be in a position to accomplish that. You can feel that everyone is aware of that.”

Stats that tell the story of the Jazz’s week.

64.3

The Jazz’s had two of the most dominant halfcourt defensive performance of the NBA season this past week. They held Detroit to 71.9 against their set defense, and then held Atlanta (without Trae Young) to 64.3, not counting blowout minutes or heaves. The latter game was one of just seven times this season a team has allowed fewer than 65 points per 100 halfcourt plays. The Jazz and Lakers are the only teams do do that twice. Overall, the Jazz have the top halfcourt defense in the league at 89.4 (league average is league average is 95.9).

26

The Jazz’s 26 3-pointers in Charlotte were a franchise record, and accounted for 78 of their season-high 138 points. Even crazier than the raw number, they shot 52% on that volume of threes. They’re one of just three teams ever to shoot 50% on at least 50 attempts from deep (the Rockets and Bucks also accomplished it this year).

13:25

Gobert grabbed his scored his 10th point against Charlotte at the 9:22 mark in the third quarter. He had already collected 11 rebounds at that point, which means it took him just 13:25 of court time to log 10-and-10. That’s the fastest he’s gotten to any of his team-leading 17 double-doubles.

2

Mi hermano reminds us that the Jazz have games coming up in the next three weeks against each of the teams currently joining the Jazz in the league’s top five — starting with Milwaukee on Friday. But he also shared that they will largely be done with the crème de la crème at that point; they only have two games remaining against those four teams in the second half of the NBA season. They’ll be tested between now and March 3, but if they can hang on, they’ll be in great shape.

-4.4

Now the bad news: we don’t know how long Utah will be without Conley, and for the season they get outscored by 4.4 points per 100 possessions when Conley isn’t on the floor. He’s the only Jazz player whose rests lead to losing basketball (+0.8 when Gobert sits, and it goes up from there). Even during this torrid 15-1 stretch, they have essentially eked out an even NetRtg (-0.3) when Mike has sat. It will be interesting to see how they hold up in whatever games Mike misses — and if the absence will cost the veteran guard a shot at a well-deserved All-Star spot. 

Recognizing the best (or most memorable) performances from each Jazz win.

Keeping track of the Jazz’s place in the wild, wild West.

Now that all but one team has played 20 games — Memphis is still at 18 after having their season on pause for nearly two weeks — it’s a lot easier to see how tiers are beginning to shake out. In the West, there appear to be five really good to great teams, in terms of how they project to shake out by May.

• Utah and the L.A. teams are a clear first tier at the moment. There are a lot of games left for injury or inconsistency to pull one down closer to the next tier.
• Denver and Phoenix are next in just about every predictive system or macro model I can get my hands on. The gap between them and everybody below underscores the importance of keeping a top-3 seed. Whoever is fourth is going to have three very good to elite teams in front of them on their playoff bracket. 
• After those two, there’s a crowded mess at 6 through 13, with the order being pretty subjective based on which model you’re looking at. FiveThirtyEight favors the Blazers, Spurs, Rockets, Mavs and Pels to earn the final sure playoff berth plus the four play-in spots. Inpredictable, SRS and TeamRankings all seem to think Golden State will bump someone else off the list, and different models regard Memphis and Sacramento very differently in terms of getting into the top 10 for a crack at playing in. 
• The other thing that just about every model agrees on is that OKC and Minnesota are not playoff teams this season. 

Looking ahead to the next seven nights of Jazz action.

The Jazz have a homestand starting this week, but it’s far from an easy one. The only team they’ll face in the next four that isn’t a top-10 team by net efficiency is, oh, just the reigning Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat.

Tuesday 2/9, Jazz vs. Celtics: If your’e one of those people who believe that a contender must have a top-10 offense and defense, then there are exactly four contenders at the moment: including Utah’s next opponent. Boston is solid at both ends and elite on neither, although they are good at forcing low-percentage shots. Jaylen Brown has taken another mini-leap, but he missed Sunday’s game and is listed as day-to-day. If he can’t go, Boston still has two other All-Stars. Kemba Walker debuted late and has been struggling (way below career levels for efficiency, and the Celtics are 4-7 since he rejoined the lineup), but Jayson Tatum is building on his first All-Star campaign with 27 ppg this season.

Friday 2/12, Jazz vs. Bucks: The only team to join Utah with a double digit efficiency differential is Milwaukee, which has been scoring like crazy. The Bucks are the most accurate team in the league at the rim, led by the hyperathletic Giannis Antetokounmpo. This team will let you shoot threes, so that could be Utah’s template here. That’s what Utah did in a 131-118 January win in Wisconsin, a game in which O’Neale hit six threes and the Jazz dropped 25 in total.

Saturday 2/13, Jazz vs. Heat: Let’s be honest: the Heat probably were never quite as good as their improbable Finals run made them look — but they’re also nowhere near as bad as their current 9-14 record. Injuries have made it hard for them to get into any kind of rhythm, and they got more bad news recently, with Avery Bradley set to miss a month or so, and Meyers Leonard out for the year. Goran Dragic and Moe Harkless are also banged up. All-Star Bam Adebayo has taken over as Miami’s lead scorer and top usage guy, in part because other guys have been struggling, Dragic, Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro are all shooting below league average true shooting. Butler hasn’t made a three yet this season (14 attempts). 

Random stuff from the Jazz community.

OK, this is really cool: Jazz fan (and SCH alumnus) Aaron Hefner recently self-published a children’s book, and it also stars a Jazz player.

Hey @rudygobert27! I wrote a children’s book about different kinds of hair to help teach kids to embrace themselves & love diversity.
Of course I had to include a page with your iconic hair design. If you’d like, DM me & I’ll send you a copy!https://t.co/GSb4QlTObR pic.twitter.com/p22kYveb2g

— Aaron Hefner (@Aheffy) February 2, 2021

The book is called “What’s Your Hair-do?” and is meant to help kids understand and embrace what makes them and other people unique.

Consider grabbing a copy for the kids (or adults) in your life.

That wraps another seven days in Jazzland.