(Russ Isabella/USA TODAY Sports)
The All-Star break carries with it a host of annual assessments of how the season has gone. In that tradition, the following statistics approximate how the season has gone thus far for each player on the Utah Jazz.
Rudy Gobert: 5.16 Real Plus-Minus
ESPN’s real plus-minus measures players’ net point differential both offensively and defensively while adjusting for both teammates and opponents. It has become one of the more trusted single-stat metrics for overall player value, and it loves the Stifle Tower. Gobert ranks 10th in the league in real plus-minus, and every player ahead of him is a legitimate MVP-caliber player: Paul George, James Harden, Nikola Jokic, Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, LeBron James, and Kyrie Irving. In this age of analytics, going by the numbers forces one to ponder whether Gobert is a top-10 player in the NBA.
Donovan Mitchell: 47.4 Effective Field Goal Rate
While Mitchell has upped his scoring from his mythic rookie season to 22.4 points per game, it hasn’t been as a result of shedding his one real bugaboo from last year: efficiency. His 50.6 effective field goal rate as a rookie wasn’t great but gave reason for optimism given such a high usage by, after all, a rookie. But this year’s lower efficiency is troubling. While this isn’t something to worry about greatly — super-stardom is rarely a linear path — it is an area that requires deliberate development if Mitchell is to reach his potential.
Joe Ingles: 32 Percent From Three Outside The Corners
That a one-time fringe NBA talent has become of the most pivotal players on the Jazz is one of the more remarkable late career stories in NBA history. So much is now expected of Ingles that his sub-37 percent shooting from three is widely regarded as a glaring drop. While he’s still deadly from the corners, his average and below average efficiency from everywhere else from deep shows the focus he now draws from defenses.
Ricky Rubio: 22.1 Usage Rate
If there’s one thing that is utterly predictable about the Jazz of the past two seasons, it’s that Rubio is incredibly important to their success. His usage rate this season is almost identical to the 22 even he mustered last year — and ranks second on the team to Mitchell. It’s one of the maddening truths about this Jazz team: perhaps their most variable offensive player is an indispensable cog in the offensive mechanism.
Derrick Favors: 1 Clutch Minute
There was a time not that long ago when Derrick Favors was the centerpiece of the Jazz’s future. This season, he’s played exactly one minute in the clutch. Last year, which saw Favors completely cede role of alpha big to Gobert, still included the Georgia product playing 41 clutch minutes in the regular season. This year that’s dropped as near to zero as whole numbers can get and yet, in what is genuinely remarkable in the ego-ridden NBA, there hasn’t been a whisper of complaint from Favors, who has become the most team-oriented person on a squad all about team.
Jae Crowder: 336 Three Point Attempts
While Ingles has been one of the league’s best long-distance shooters the past few season, and Kyle Korver is one of the best in league history, it’s Crowder’s 336 attempted triples that lead the Jazz this season. Crowder’s 33.3 percent accuracy isn’t anything to write home about, but he’s going to keep getting open threes in the Jazz offense. Whether’s he’s hot or cold is one of the most influential factors in when the Jazz win or lose games.
Kyle Korver: 17.3 Usage Rate
Korver isn’t primarily a source of gravity spreading the floor in Utah, unlike his role with Cleveland. In fact, his usage this year is higher than any season since the 2010-11 campaign when Korver was with the Bulls! When the 37 year old is on the floor, the Jazz offense is designed to get him the ball so he can score.
Royce O’Neale: 43.9 Percent From Three
Entering the year, O’Neale had established his place as one of the better defenders on any NBA bench. Unexpectedly, he has added elite accuracy from deep to the resume this season, which has made O’Neale into a fine example of the NBA’s most craved role player: the three-and-D wing.
Dante Exum: 39 Games
For good or ill, the story of Exum’s season was likely to be told in games played. That has played out and, unfortunately, the ill has once again born out. Exum’s once-promising career has become a single infuriating question: will he ever been on the court frequently enough to build any type of genuine career?
Georges Niang: 312 Minutes Played
This season, Niang has done what all but about 500 people at a time in the world can only dream of: established himself as a legitimate NBA player. After a previous season high of 93 minutes played two seasons ago in Indiana, Niang’s regular contributions this season should earn him a place as a contributor on an NBA roster for years to come.
Thabo Sefolosha: 27 Games
Father Time is undefeated, and Sefolosha is realizing he likely won’t be able to keep up his fight against the unbeaten champ for that much longer. After managing only 38 games last season, the 34-year-old Sefolosha is once again in position to miss a large segment of what may be one of his last seasons in the NBA.
Raul Neto: 3.6 Plus-Minus
In one of the more surprising statistics of the season, Neto’s 3.6 plus-minus ranks third on the Jazz after Gobert and Ingles. The tough Brazilian has fulfilled everything the Jazz saw in him years ago as a surprising draft prospect, becoming a rock solid bench contributor in irregular minutes, which a really difficult thing to do.
Grayson Allen: 28 Games Played
While the Jazz are believers in Allen’s potential to become a quality NBA player, his year has gone as might have been predicted when he was drafted by a team coming off a second-round playoff exit. While Allen will be a good NBA player, the Jazz are full of better players right now, and they’re playing for right now.
Ekpe Udoh: 112.4 Defensive Rating
Last season’s small-minute monster has fallen far short of the elite defensive impact he provided in limited minutes last year. Correspondingly, his time on the floor has fallen as well. A roster with Gobert and Favors makes it hard to make an impact as a traditional big, and this year Udoh has quietly, and without complaint, slid further into the background.
