Snyder Moves On, But Philosophical Questions Linger

Quin Snyder stepped down as coach of the Utah Jazz on Sunday. (Andrew D. Bernstein via espn.com)

“Philosophical issues.”

What began as just the latest in a series of euphemisms and code words being used to describe the Utah Jazz’s summer of discontent is now an epitaph carved into the stone where an era of Jazz basketball was just laid to rest.

Quin Snyder is no longer the head coach of the Utah Jazz. Days after ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon reported that Snyder could decide to step away, the sides ultimately couldn’t clear the impasse and the eight-year head coach will move on. The obstacle, per the ESPN scribes, came down to “philosophical issues.” That’s an interesting word choice by whomever spoke on the coach’s behalf. (It’s unclear exactly who the “Jazz source” was behind the report, but the piece was inarguably written from a Snyder-friendly vantage point.)

If you know anything about Snyder, it’s that he doesn’t use words by accident. Of course, in this case we don’t know exactly how many stops existed in the game of telephone between Snyder’s own thoughts on his Jazz future and us reading about it. Certainly at least one. Maybe more. Still, whenever Snyder is involved, my starting point is always to assume that the word choice is deliberate and careful. The report didn’t describe “basketball identity issues” or “personnel discussions” as being the hangup to Snyder’s continued leadership. It made no mention of the sides debating roster construction, haggling over titles, or negotiating salary details¹.

On the record, Snyder is taking the high road. “I strongly feel they need a new voice to continue to evolve,” Snyder said in a statement on Sunday. “That’s it.”

That’s a classy thing to say out loud. But it’s hard to deny that, as the stalemate has been covered in the past few days, there has definitely been a sense that some deeper issues are at play here. MacMahon elaborated on the Hoop Collective with an accounting of a trying couple of years for Snyder and the Jazz. Tony Jones of the Athletic corroborated on Wednesday with his report that challenges “on and off the court” clouded the coach’s future in Utah. It seems whatever concerns coaxed Snyder away from the post where he won 393 regular season and playoff games were cultural ones.

So what are these philosophical issues?

Let’s zoom out for a moment to the larger climate within Utah’s clubhouse. In almost no time at all, the Jazz went from being a Western Conference juggernaut with a near-unstoppable offense and a solid defensive identity to their current collection of disgruntled and disconnected individuals. And ever since their season ended anticlimactically in the first round of the playoffs, there has been abundant evidence of frustration from multiple veterans.

Rudy Gobert’s angst has been well documented, starting with his challenged relationship to another Jazz star, Donovan Mitchell. According to one rumor, the former’s frustration with his fellow All-Star culminated to the point where Gobert was considering issuing a “him or me” type ultimatum. Nobody I’ve heard from² believes that report to be true at its most literal extreme, and Gobert himself shot the rumor down in a now-deleted tweet. But the fact that the rumor exists at all is likely a good indicator that the big man expressed something at some point to someone. Nobody with any degree of inside insight has denied that real tension exists between Utah’s All-Stars, including around issues that feel — to borrow a word — philosophical in nature.

The evidence of existential frustration goes well beyond Gobert and the now-departed Snyder, though.

Rudy Gay could often be heard preaching about commitment to the Jazz’s philosophy, even as he struggled with his own performance. “We’re a good team,” he said after a March loss, “but we have to stick to our principles, stick to what coach Quin teaches.” He didn’t single out any players, but went on to delineate specific (and familiar) issues: ball movement, defense, and “playing for each other.”

It only took Hassan Whiteside a few hours after elimination to post a photo of himself exiting the arena with the caption “LEGO OUT!”³ That’s not altogether damning by itself, but journeyman veterans who are bouncing from one minimum contract to the next generally don’t proactively rule out one of 30 potential employers on April 29.

And then of course, there was Joe Ingles’ weird amount of glee at the Jazz’s drama. Right as the Gobert-Mitchell drama dropped on May 2, the former Jazz veteran tweeted popcorn, eyes and peeking-through-hands emojis. That’s a level of schadenfraude you don’t typically see from the easygoing Australian. The grapevine would indicate that even some of the happy-go-lucky vets who generally stay away from the drama have privately expressed some degree of exasperation.

But there is perhaps no better barometer for precisely how the vexation has compounded on this basketball team than if you really pay attention to the escalating ton of disappointment behind Mike Conley’s words throughout the season.

Conley is a well-liked and universally respected veteran, and he doesn’t dole out criticisms lightly. Here is what he sounded like after a March loss to the Nets:

“We just (have to) keep scrapping on defense and trying to make plays for each other… Let’s use everybody and trust each other… We have to have that kind of energy and urgency earlier.”

Nothing too sharp there about his tone or his message. But then the Jazz entered Brooklyn having won 15 of 20. By two weeks later, when they punctuated a 1-6 stretch by giving back a double-digit lead to the Steph Curry-less Warriors, Conley’s tone was clearly more urgent:

“We have to… get all five guys collectively with that mindset. We get a little too much in the iso-ball, or ‘it’s my turn, your turn’ situation. What got us to the 15-point lead, 12-point lead might have been pushing the ball, throwing it ahead, movement, movement, movement. If we don’t have anything, then we… let our guys who make plays, make plays… We can still be unselfish and win these games.”

The same underlying message is there in both Conley quotes: about trust and playing the right way. But the tone was completely different after Game 78 than it was in mid-March.

And then finally, here is the culmination of Conley’s frustration, his quote from immediately after the Jazz’s season-ending loss:

“We just needed to be better in so many different aspects of adjusting and raising our level at different parts of the season to keep our confidence high and keep our camaraderie where it’s at.

“We’re a team that’s built on unity and playing for each other. And at times we lost that. When we lose that identity, it shows in our defense, as well. We kind of fight ourselves on who we want to be and what we’re trying to do out there on a nightly basis.

We fight ourselves on who we want to be. Oof. That is a brutal quote. There was an obvious crescendo in the frustration level across those three quotes, but the core message is actually pretty consistent: at all three points (and dozens of others throughout the season), Conley was mostly diagnosing the Jazz’s issues as a function of their commitment to each other, their trust in each other, and their desire to play a certain way — collectively.

In short: the frustration level is and has been high. And for many of the perturbed veterans, the dissatisfaction correlates directly to the Jazz lacking a sense of cohesion that had previously defined the team.

“When you look back, it’s obviously frustrating,” Gobert added after the playoff ouster. “I think this year is, over the last few years, the first year we really at times lost our identity.”

A cultural shift as massive as what the Jazz have undergone in the last year or so doesn’t happen for any one reason. But when enough guys hint at the same common thread around lost cohesion, it’s fair to wonder exactly why the “strength of the team is the team” ethos vanished overnight.

A separate bit of reporting by ESPN’s MacMahon might help explain that. The morning after the Jazz’s untimely ouster, MacMahon detailed a series of conversations and decisions made by ownership to prioritize a single player’s happiness.

It wasn’t all that surprising really. Ask anybody with even second- or third-hand knowledge of the mindset among Jazz brass, and they’ll tell you that majority owner Ryan Smith is laser focused on keeping Mitchell happy in Utah. And as that ESPN piece pointed out, it’s not all that uncommon for star players to operate by their own set of rules or get unique perks.

But on a team whose bedrock principle had been collective sacrifice, there’s a real chance it didn’t sit particularly well with some of Mitchell’s cohorts to see how much influence he was being given on matters that affected not just him but the entire team. MacMahon’s article laid out some of those concessions: from staff hires to changes in the injury management process, even at least one specific roster move. There are other theories out there beyond the examples provided in that piece, too. One media personality suggested that Mitchell’s fingerprints were all over the Jazz’s somewhat unpopular rebranding effort — a report he appeared to refute. The team seems to have adjusted a lot of micro and macro stuff around Mitchell’s preferences — including some areas that are typically the exclusive purview of a coach. 

Has the blank check of power ownership handed Mitchell been wielded in ways that might foster resentment among players or make a coach feel undercut? Are people who are supposed to make decisions for the team getting vetoed based on what one player wants? Have people in the franchise been given instructions about how they can or can’t handle the young superstar?

To be clear: I don’t know for sure. This isn’t a report. Consider it more of a theory, but one based on a constant drumbeat of dissatisfaction all around the team.

But if the answer to any of those questions is yes, then Smith might have unintentionally created a different set of problems for himself and his ball club.

Circling back to the outgoing Jazz coach, Snyder has very specific expectations of players, both on an overall system level and in the context of a given game plan. Basketball is such a team-oriented sport anyway, but Snyder’s architecture in particular requires a level of intricacy, connectedness and collective adherence to fully deploy its power.

Maintaining that requires a certain culture of accountability. Remember, Snyder comes from the Gregg Popovich coaching tree, and the longtime Spurs coach has famously been as demanding with franchise icons like Hall of Fame big man Tim Duncan as he is with role players. What Pop and Snyder both know is that to achieve something truly special that is more than a sum of its parts, you can’t have guys who are exempted from certain foundational principles. In winning cultures, teams have to be able to openly address less productive tendencies and behaviors without feeling like you’re walking on eggshells.

What could be more philosophical than that?

Again, for clarity’s sake: this writer has no inside knowledge of Snyder’s reasoning for stepping away. But it’s also not a crazy guess. Imagine being a coach and having it made clear to you that the comfort level of one of your 15-plus players now overrides other considerations on several basketball matters where you previously had autonomy. Even if you understand the end game behind that edict, it could be fairly complicated to put that into practice without undermining your own tenets that you’ve preached all along.

What’s more, the change in ownership approaches has specifically been tied to the reporting around Snyder’s restlessness. As MacMahon expounded on his report in a podcast this week, he made a point to highlight Smith’s involvement in contrast to his more “hands-off” predecessors. “It’s a very different environment,” the writer acknowledged.

That autonomy on basketball matters could have been at the heart of the discussions that have been unfolding for weeks between Snyder and ownership. If so, the fact that the coach ultimately moved on could be read as a signal that it’s a condition to which Smith wouldn’t agree. How that dynamic unfolds with the next head coach is as important a question as any for the Utah Jazz.

If affects everything. It will impact Mitchell’s growth. It will impact relationships up and down the roster. It will help determine how desirable a position the Jazz head coaching job even is, and how much other veterans want to play in that environment. All of that could affect the likelihood of the Jazz ever turning the corner as first-tier contenders, which in turn will affect Mitchell’s likelihood of staying past the near-term future.

It also could be one of the driving forces behind the overall frustration pervading the franchise right now. In the context of one player’s grasp on the franchise seeming to tighten, the growing frankness of Jazz players who are preaching the doctrine of “play for each other,” “built on unity” and “trust in the team” might not be a coincidence. And if that’s the case, it might not be Mitchell who those players are attempting to reach with those concepts. They might be speaking directly to Smith and the other front office elements that have flipped the Jazz’s team-first mantra on its head in favor of one player’s comfort level.

Donovan Mitchell is an absolutely gifted basketball player, a gregarious and dynamic franchise star, and by all accounts a gracious human being. One of the most fortuitous things to ever happen to the Utah Jazz as a basketball team is the fact that he fell to 13th in the 2017 draft and the Jazz found a path to move up and draft him.

What’s more, he clearly WANTS to be coached. He wants to be liked by his teammates. He wants to be a great player who does great things.

Even if every hypothetical offered here were true, none of it is Mitchell’s fault. What 25-year-old when offered more influence over a situation he cares deeply about would say anything other than, “Uh, OK”? He is figuring out how to be the central figure in a multi-billion dollar organization at a point in life when most people are still grappling with very basic aspects of how to be a decent person and professional. His intentions are good, and he also has a chorus of people around him to help him feel justified about every request or inkling he takes to Jazz management.

Bottom line: Mitchell is already great and is likely going to get better. He just finished his most efficient season ever, while also posting career bests in most all-in advanced metrics, and certain playmaking measures to boot. His postseason was a rough one, without question, as he was tested greatly on both ends of the floor, but overall he is a top-25 NBA player with plenty of room to continue developing.

He has grown immensely under Snyder, who especially in those early years of Mitchell’s career always applauded the guard’s coachability and desire to improve. Now he’ll have a chance to work with a new head coach and potentially learn some new things about how to unlock his potential and take his leadership to the next level.

It’s up to him to make sure that the partnership with his next coach will enable that kind of growth, realism and introspection.

And it’s up to Smith and the rest of the Jazz brass to foster a player-coach relationship where that can happen for Mitchell AND where the rest of the team can also thrive.