This summer forced some major changes for the Jazz.
Some of it was unwanted. The offseason began with an overwhelming supply of worry, as general manager Dennis Lindsey and head coach Quin Snyder attempted to keep star forward Gordon Hayward from heading east. Their first move was replacing point guard George Hill. When they did this, it was clear what direction they wanted to go in.
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The Jazz made the move in late June, trading a first-round pick — a lottery-protected pick from Oklahoma City, one they received from the Enes Kanter trade of two years prior — for point guard Ricky Rubio. This move wasn't just to appease their star Hayward, who reportedly coveted Rubio and wanted to play with the passing savant, but also to help speed up the slowest-paced offensive team in the NBA last season.
In fairness, they made this pace of play work. It happens in large part because of their elite team defense, led by Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Rudy Gobert. Their offense, though, revolved around Hayward, a monster in the triple-threat position, who played off Hill and old-school, inside-oriented bigs like Gobert and Derrick Favors. They didn't have the roster makeup to run, even if Hayward had the ability to do so. Adding Rubio, in theory, would help change that.
But then Hayward went to Boston.
Rubio already changed the approach for the Jazz, but losing the team’s go-to option gave Snyder’s job a new challenge he hadn’t yet faced. The Jazz, a team littered with depth, no longer has a true No. 1 scoring option. As the season presses on, he will have to determine exactly how this team will score the basketball. So far, he’s tried a few different methods.
Through two games, the Jazz are at the bottom of the league in pace, but they’re moving the ball more quickly when the ball gets up court. This is Rubio’s nature. Even if Favors, Gobert and new starter Joe Ingles aren’t bred for the fast break, Rubio never has the ball in his hands for long. Even in the half-court set, Rubio likes to make plays early in the shot clock.
One major advantage the Jazz have held onto is their length. For what Rubio lacks both athletically and in his poor shooting percentages, he makes up for with his size. Add that to Gobert’s infinite wingspan, Favors’ 6-10, 265-pound frame and Rodney Hood’s height from the perimeter, and it’s hard to defend the Jazz simply because they’re so much bigger than everyone else.
So far, they’ve used that to their advantage. They’ve run much of their offense through Rubio, but Utah is also masterful at swinging the ball around the perimeter. Having sharpshooters in Ingles and Hood has been a saving grace for the Jazz this year to make up for Rubio’s shooting woes. The rest of the starting five played together last season, making the chemistry easier to build with Rubio.
Currently, the Jazz are second only to the Warriors in assist percentage on 2-point field goals. That’s where Rubio has come in, working off screens from the Jazz frontcourt — Ingles, Favors and Gobert all getting involved — and working off a slew of drive-and-dish opportunities. Last year, the Hayward-led Jazz were in the bottom seven in that category.
Through the obscenely small sample size available this season, they’re in the bottom four in assist percentage on 3-pointers, a number that should eventually go up. When they do run the fast break — which is happening more, but still at a sparse rate — it’s generally starting off a Gobert block, and ending as a dish out to Hood or Ingles.
This is a team that has generally run a slow offense centered around a triple-threat star. As a result, the Jazz have finished toward the bottom in assists each of the past five years. So far this year, they’re a top-five team in assists per game (24.3).
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That’s what Rubio brings. He isn’t the multi-dimensional threat Hayward was for Snyder and the Jazz, and he’s not going to score an efficient 15 points per game like Hill could at the point. But he is going to bring a new dimension offensively that Jazz fans haven’t seen in a couple decades.
Hayward is in Boston now, and the offense has to change. Rubio brings something to an NBA offense that few point guards are able to do.
It won’t be perfect, but it will be faster — and more fun.