Who’s Been Naughty or Nice Ahead of Utah’s Christmas Day Game?

Time for some Jazz-related yuletide festivities as Donovan Mitchell and his squad get set to host their second Christmas Day game in four season. (Leah Hogsten via sltrib.com)

In the song Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Santa keeps tabs on who’s naughty or nice — always watching, always taking notes. A bit creepy, really. But to be honest, not too different from those who write about the NBA. We watch, we take notes, we make determinations about whether a player is good or bad.

In celebration of the Jazz’s Christmas Night game — vs. the Dallas Mavericks at 8:30 p.m. MST on ESPN — let’s make some pronouncements about the Utah Jazz starters. What are they doing that might land them on the naughty or nice lists? Let’s dig in.

Mike Conley Jr.

The naughty: age and availability

It’s no secret that the Jazz are trying to preserve Conley for the playoffs. He’s getting up there in age, but he’s critical to what they do, so they strategically rest him in certain games, so far all on the second night of back-to-backs. They’ve lost all three games Conley has missed. His minutes per game are down. His usage rate is down. His shots at the rim are down. All signs of aging. But don’t let that discourage you — when Conley plays he is still incredible effective. It makes sense why the team wants him fresh for the biggest moments.

The nice: pull up threes

Conley is hitting the pull up three at a rate of 42.7 percent. This leads the league when filtering for players that take at least two a game. Conley takes 3.8 of those shots a game, a huge weapon. Give some credit to Rudy Gobert, whose screens give Conley plenty of air space. But most of the credit here belongs to Conley, who has evolved his shot profile, and who now pulls the trigger whenever given the chance.

Donovan Mitchell

The naughty: decision making

Compared to previous seasons, Mitchell’s decision making has improved. The worn-out sports phrase applies: the game has slowed down for the fifth-year pro. That said, there are still moments of tunnel vision, particularly at the end of games. There are times it appears Mitchell is trying to match an opponent shot-for-shot. This is not a huge knock — superstars carry heavy burdens, and making the right play is a skill that takes experience. Mitchell is on the right track, but there’s still work to do.

The nice: defensive effort

Each offseason, Mitchell has talked about improving his defense. We’re seeing fruits of that this season. His steal rate is up. His deflections are up. He’s defending three point shots better. While his numbers have tapered a bit recently, the body of work this season is encouraging.

If you’re looking for other reasons to include Donovan on the nice list, you can also point to his career-high efficiency, particularly so at the rim. But hey, it’s not hard to find nice things to say about a player who’s cracking MVP rankings.

Royce O’Neale

The naughty: defending guards

Perhaps this isn’t fair — Royce is usually tasked with guarding the opposing best player. Often that’s a guard. While O’Neale is an excellent defender, he can struggle with quicker players. This may be more of a roster problem than a Royce O’Neale problem, but unless a trade is made, it’s an assignment that will be given to Royce, fair or not.

The nice: rim finishing

Royce continues to be a glue guy for the Jazz. On a team full of offensive players, he doesn’t demand his own shots. He’s been selfless to a fault at times in his career. This season he’s attacking the rim with more force. He still plays within the offense, but his shot attempts are at a career high. So is his rim finishing, where he is shooting at 74 percent, one of the best figures in the league.

Bojan Bogdanovic

The naughty: dribbling

Bogdanovic is a fascinating player. He’s an incredibly skilled on the offensive end, able to score at all three levels. He’s one of the best shooters in the league. But the Croatian forward is more of an elite end-point to an offensive play than an initiator. Sometimes he dribbles more than he needs to and gets stripped — they are moments where fans pull their hair out in frustration. This is more of an eye test thing than a big issue. The truth is that Bogdanovic’s turnover rate is actually a career best this season, so it’s actually happening less, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

Related to dribbling, I don’t know if the numbers back this up, but it feels like Bogey misses open threes way more often when he takes a moment to dribble and collect himself. He’s such a skilled shooter I’d like to see him fire right away every time he has an open shot.

The nice: putting the ball in the basket

Here’s a boring, but true statement: Bojan continues to be a brilliant shooter. Following the team-wide trend, his rim finishing has made a huge leap from 57 percent last season to 67 percent this season. He’s shooting the three better at a career best. Having such a lethal player as a third option on offense is a true luxury.

Rudy Gobert

The naughty: fast break ball handling

I’m really grasping at straws here. The truth is that Rudy is having a career year and doing basically everything better. While he has limitations, he plays to his strengths. I actually like that he is trying more offensive moves in the regular season, even if they’re not always effective. Rudy should continue to experiment and practice punishing mismatches. But I don’t think he should experiment dribbling down the court on fast breaks. Just pass the ball every time.

The nice: basically everything

Like I mentioned, you can look at almost every aspect of Rudy’s game and it’s at a career high. The field goal percentage, the free throws, the rebounding, the defense. He’s is in the MVP conversation, even though he doesn’t fit the typical MVP archetype and he won’t win the actual award. But his overall impact gets him a one-way ticket to the nice list.

Happy holidays everyone! Enjoy Utah’s Christmas game that may not feature many Maverick starters due to health and safety protocols.