Setting Floors and Raising Ceilings: On Utah’s Star Duo

Utah’s stars hope to carry the team to new heights. (Melissa Majchrzak via espn.com)

The Jazz have been a consistently good team since the 2016-17 season, with a .633 winning percentage that is the best in the NBA over that six-season span.  When that stretch started, Gordon Hayward was about to make his first All-Star appearance and Donovan Mitchell was still in his Sophomore season at Louisville, still months away from being acquired by the Jazz in a draft-day deal. The Jazz’s 266 wins over that span are just one shy of Milwaukee’s 267 for the most wins in the NBA in that period.

The success of that season, culminating with a Game 7 win over the Clippers in the first round of the 2017 playoffs, seemed to correlate with the jump in Gordon Hayward’s progression to star status. The versatile forward scored a career-high 21.9 points per game that season, and was legitimized with an All-Star nod just as the Jazz were rising to relevance.

However, crediting Hayward as the floor-raiser does not truly add, considering that the Jazz enjoyed similar success the following season with rookie Mitchell as the focal point of the offense. So who then sets Utah’s floor?

The Floor

The truth is that perhaps Rudy Gobert had a lot more to do with the Jazz rise to “contender” status than he’s ever been credited. Of course, he’s talked about a lot. He’s a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, four-time All-NBA, and one of the most efficient players in the game who thrives on dunks, putbacks, and lob finishes. He has a tremendous impact on the offensive end of the floor as a roller, screener, and second-chance scorer.

But the evidence also suggests that his defensive AND offensive success will correlate to true value as a year-over-year playoff basketball team. In other words, Gobert provides a stable floor. A minimum of achievement that’s been as reliable as death and taxes.

The Jazz have consistently been a top 5 seed with 50-ish annual wins (they had one season at 48) since the French center came to prominence as the full-time starting center for an entire season. (Gobert was promoted to the starting five midway through the 2014-15 campaign and then missed a quarter of 2015-16.) Gobert gives the Jazz the luxury of penciling in a base level of competency: if they do nothing else, they can almost count that as their floor.

You could also note that some coaches and their systems seem to nearly guarantee a floor as well, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly. Not many analytics exist around the value of coaching, and many of the long-tenured coaches have had their careers intertwined with franchise players, making it difficult to parse exactly how much value they deliver relative to their on-court stalwarts.

If Gobert somehow magically developed the playmaking of Nikola Jokic or the scoring prowess of Karl-Anthony Towns or Joel Embiid, then suddenly he does more than provide a floor. He could expand the ceiling. But so far we haven’t seen indications that he can grow that way in his career. He’ll continue to positively impact the offense with his tremendous roll gravity, but when he puts the team on his back, it’s usually with his dominance on the defensive end of the court.

So the task for the Jazz front office over the last few years has been simple in that regard: keep Gobert happy and healthy as a means of maintaining a 50-win floor.

From there, the Jazz can move the needle further by developing a cornerstone — as they have with Mitchell — and improving around the fringes. They’ve done that. Year over year, the changes have slowly improved the roster to the point where they’re a top offensive juggernaut and a candidate to post the best offensive season ever.  With the right moves, they’ve been able to expand the ceiling beyond the base 50 wins that Gobert effectively guarantees with his all-league impact.

The Ceiling

While Gobert’s value ensures the Jazz a base level of relevance, the team is no longer focused on its floor. Two straight seasons at or near the top of the Western Conference have emboldened the Jazz to think about their ceiling — and a lot of that is tied to Mitchell taking another step in his own superstar journey.

The dynamic scoring guard is having the most effective and efficient season of his career. His per-shot efficiency is the best it has ever been (.570 TS%), and advanced stats like Box Plus-Minus and Win Shares per 48 say this is his most impactful season ever. He’s a top-10 player in the vaunted Estimated Plus-Minus stat, and he’s not far off in other all-in metrics like RAPTOR (14th), Total Points Added (14th) and LEBRON (12th). Already an All-Star level talent, Mitchell is clearly taking another leap.

Obviously the front office has made other rotation changes to accelerate Utah’s contention window. Those personnel decisions have also expanded the ceiling — trading for Mike Conley Jr., signing Bojan Bogdanovic, making smart use of cap exceptions, and more. But without Mitchell, how far does Bogdanovic, Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles or even Mike Conley actually take the Jazz? 

If you throw Mitchell onto a roster surrounded by auto-generated NBA2K talent, maybe the floor is 40. Maybe it’s lower. Alone, he may not guarantee the same level of relevancy as Gobert. But the ceiling is there. Donovan is capable of being the primary player and number one option on a championship team. That’s his ceiling.

Without Mitchell, there’s a cap and a limit to how high the team could go — even with Gobert. A team led by Gobert, Conley, Bogdanovic and an awesome supporting cast would be very competent, but likely would not be considered a true contender. A good example of that is on display in Los Angeles: without Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers still have an All-NBA talent in Paul George and a few borderline stars in other roles. But at present, they’re closer to the play-in tournament (1/2 game ahead of the No. 7 seed) than they are to homecourt in the first round (2.5 games out of fourth). They’re very solid, but most of the time teams need that game-defining superstar to be a legitimate threat to win it all.

Mitchell’s ability to take over a playoff game and define how teams play against the Jazz is the key to unlocking that next level.

Building Towards a Title

Around the league, various franchise cornerstone types redefine their teams’ realities either as “Floor Builders” or “Ceiling Expanders.” Some truly special players single-handedly provide you with a solid floor while also offering nearly limitless potential when it comes to ceiling.

A healthy LeBron James in his prime, for example, set a pretty high floor for his team, as having LeBron on your roster basically meant you were guaranteed a berth in the NBA Finals — James’ teams went eight straight times. Roster quality around the megastar helped decide whether they had enough to win in a particular year. But the floor was the Finals and the ceiling was a title.

Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic also seem to be those special players that can offer both a high minimum bar, while also unlocking the highest of potentials. Again, they need other personnel to achieve that potential. But the potential is there.

And even more interesting is that there’s actually a case-study of the Mitchell scenario that has been unfolding before our eyes: Devin Booker. Booker clearly has the ceiling of top option on a title contender. But without any other help, the floor is the basement. Without another All-NBA talent to complement him, Booker’s Suns had a .299 winning percentage across his first five seasons. After the arrival of Chris Paul, they are 76-26 (.745) since the start of last season. Paul likely deserves his own discussion as the consummate floor-setter, someone who gives you a 50-win minimum floor all on his own. But the broader point here is that his presence helps unlock Booker’s full potential. Again, other personnel decisions matter, too. The other role players Phoenix has added deserve accolades and credit, but for the sake of not having to deconstruct every roster in existence, we are focusing on the top-level talent.

With Mitchell coming unto his own, a picture has come into focus of a team capable of a #1 offense, the best record in the league, and — the Jazz hope — a legitimate title run at some point. The ceiling is championship contention. Now the rest has to fall into place.