The Price of Advantage Basketball

The real cause of the Jazz’s inconsistency, Tyler Crandall writes, might be thinking too much, not caring too little. (via ESPN.com)

When the Utah Jazz stumbled out of the gate to an umimpressive 2-2 start to the season, one of the prevailing early-season narratives was the notion of “effort” (or lack thereof) at its core. Let’s explore that narrative, show why it probably doesn’t hold water, and offer an alternative theory. 

Try harder!

To combat the notion that a lack of effort is the primary reason for the early struggles–an explanation that was used for last season’s inconsistency as well–let’s first examine the situation. These are all highly competitive professional athletes. Yes, some NBA players are not all that concerned with taking home a championship or a playoff berth as long as they get their stats or their pay. Does that ring true for the players that have been rostered with the Utah Jazz for the last few season, let alone ever? There’s exceptions, of course. But the current makeup and DNA of the team is such that this team is engaged and always wanting to improve.

There’s also the consistent inconsistency, meaning that there are stretches of the game where things are dialed in. Specifically if they get a nice run going from a defensive stop or near the end of the game. Even though it appears that they suddenly decided to care when the game got desperate, I would posit that this is actually a function of crunch-time adrenaline coming into play where they suddenly are relying on instinct more than precise execution. And because they have drilled and drilled on the “advantage O” they can still pull it off. 

Last season, it’s easy to point to the non-Rudy Gobert minutes as a major reason why the Jazz were inconsistent, which has nothing to do with effort. This season, they have filled the roster gaps that existed when Gobert sat, so why on earth have the Jazz struggled to play with cohesion, attention to detail, and so on? For some, it’s easy to point to effort. Really, it’s just a lazy narrative. 

The Precision Tax

Let me offer you an alternative explanation that, while difficult to prove, has some logic behind it. 

Some NBA teams are really just plug-and-play and seem to click from the onset, even with a new coach or team members. Look at the LeBron James-led teams. He’s such a natural talent that he immediately adds an exorbitant amount of value to whatever team he plays for, and he also is a system unto himself in some ways. His game and the team around him are also often playing a simple and organic style of basketball. One about flow and intuition. And it all happens naturally for LeBron. He doesn’t have to think too hard about it. It’s instinct for him. As long as you put athletes and shooters around him, LeBron will make sure the ball gets to the right place at the right time and it doesn’t really take that much time for a team to gel around James. 

Conversely, you have the Utah Jazz teams during the Quin Snyder era. Snyder has been reputed as an offensive genius.  He’s never had a LeBron on his team, or really anyone close to it. But he’s had a bunch of very high basketball-IQ players. And this is really necessary. You see, Quin’s system is designed in a way that, if executed properly, it creates an advantage (I’ve written on the subject before) which will translate to a scoring opportunity.

This is done by utilizing multiple ballhandlers, off-ball and on-ball screens, and motion and actions that present a ball-handler with a menu of choices. Depending on the situation — what is the opponent defensive scheme? Do they go under or over the screen? Are they helping weakside on Rudy? Do they drop the big? — they are then tasked with making the best possible choice. Each subsequent action and reaction theoretically generates a slight advantage. Generate enough advantage and you’ve got a shot at the rim or a corner 3.

And each action plus reaction also has a counter built in that they can use, which creates yet another option for them to choose from. And the counters to the counters have counters. If you’re having trouble diagramming that in your head, you’re not alone. Imagine doing that at an NBA pace with large and highly athletic bodies around you and you’ve just barely met Quin and your teammates. Look how long it took for Mike Conley to truly feel comfortable playing like himself!

Instead of not-enough thinking, there’s actually too much thinking

There’s been plenty of dodo brain (fun animal fact: dodos actually weren’t stupid!) plays where you are left scratching your head at the decisions made by Jazz players, including All-Star guard Donovan Mitchell. You see multiple play actions and “advantages” generated and then suddenly he backs it out, dribbles behind a Rudy screen for 3 seconds and then launches a contested midrange shot. Why? With all of the options running through your head all the time, it’s probably just less mentally taxing to do the “easy” thing and try to isolate. This is the cost of the precision. 

Don’t assume that this means the Jazz always execute poorly on this menu of options while they are learning the system. They don’t. The shot profile and offensive efficiency is already there. They are professionals and the continuity obviously helps with this too. And it’s possible that this line of reasoning gets overlooked because the execution is there. What’s missing is the fact that the precision comes with a price. I’ve seen a lot of complaints on “the Twitter” that the players just don’t care, or they aren’t thinking, or they are being stupid. Again, yes, that’s how it appears. 

You can see this happen for Mitchell on this play.

It appears like a really bad decision on Donovan’s part, and it is, but it’s not just him being stupid or careless or selfish. It is partly those things. But the “blender” isn’t blending Mitchell takes the easy way out instead of forcing the thought process on the “menu” each possession. And I know continuity is an argument for why this shouldn’t happen to Don on a roster that has been kept mostly the same as in prior seasons. But even longtime Jazz big man Derrick Favors, after spending just one season away from Quin and the team, came back and said there is plenty of new stuff in Snyder’s book for him to not only re-learn, but learn for the first time.

With that many thoughts swimming through your head and so many options to choose from, it takes away from your ability to do some other things. You might make the wrong read. You may turn the ball over. You are putting so much effort into that detailed execution that you aren’t able to let yourself do some of the little things like hustle plays or faster closeouts or even just relying on the basketball instincts they all have after years of the game. There’s a real price for the level of precision that Quin expects.

Here’s an example. This is one of dozens of half-court possessions with similar results (score or no). 

Like the defense from the Suns here, watch the physicality and how they are denying the wings. Utah can't get to a dribble handoff. On the flip side, Utah is having too many of these type of possessions. Stuck in the 1/2 ct, fighting the clock. pic.twitter.com/dLp1sazJPo

— Steve Jones Jr. (@stevejones20) January 1, 2021

What you see is a whole lot of hesitation. They hesitate because there’s so many choices to run through and they aren’t relying on their instincts to run the right counters. So you see a lot of hesitation followed by a quick scrambling of dodo brain plays whether it’s a bad and contested look, a turnover, or a Don/Clarkson isolation. 

Note that this topic was also covered by one Ben Dowsett in 2019 in this piece for Forbes and there isn’t a real conclusion to his question, in this writer’s opinion. There’s still arguments to both sides. Snyder, for one, downplayed the theory.

The advantage (heh) is that once the players are comfortable this menu of options becomes second nature and players make better decisions and utilize the advantages that are created and the team really gets into a rhythm. Whenever we saw that rhythm come through last season, the reverie would be broken up by some Tony Bradley and Mudiay minutes. And the result was more inconsistency, more over-thinking, and a “tale of two Jazz teams”. This season? The roster gaps have been filled. Once the early-season over-thinking is replaced by basketball instinct and the “menu of options” becomes second-nature, we’ll start to see the Jazz team we were expecting to see all along.