The Utah Jazz enter the 2021-22 season with championship aspirations. After finishing the 2020-21 season at a league-best 52-20, playoff success is suddenly the only meaningful measure of this team’s performance. With one of the deepest rosters in the league, fans of the club deserve to hold high expectations.
Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley Jr. are all entrenched in their starter status’. No surprises there. Mitchell is the offensive hub, Gobert is the defensive anchor, and Conley Jr. is the all-important game manager. Outside of Salt Lake City’s big 3, however, it’s hard to make absolute claims about who the most important players to the Jazz’s championship cause will be in the upcoming season.
That won’t stop us from trying.
Here, we’ll rank the 5 most important players for the Utah Jazz heading into the 2021-22 season. We’ll be looking at some of the usual metrics: Box Plus/Minus (BPM), Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). With that said, we won’t strictly adhere to those measures either. After all, numbers can be noisy, and sometimes it can be best to trust your gut.
Or not. Either way, you’re not here for life advice. You’re here to see the five most important players on the Utah Jazz entering the 2021-22 season.
this Jazz team is so deep</a> that identifying its five most important players is a surprisingly difficult task. For many teams, it’s as simple as looking to the starting five. For the Jazz, that’s not necessarily an effective method.</p>
<p>That’s because the Utah Jazz rostered both the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in <a href=https://thejnotes.com/2021/10/02/utah-jazz-ranking-important-players/"https://thejnotes.com/2021/08/11/utah-jazz-contend-nba-1-condition/">Jordan Clarkson</a>, and the league’s runner-up in Joe Ingles. Between Quin Snyder’s platoon of wings and guards, the designation of starter is almost arbitrary.</p>
<p>The operative word being <em>almost. </em></p>
<p>Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley Jr. are all entrenched in their starter status’. No surprises there. Mitchell is the offensive hub, Gobert is the defensive anchor, and Conley Jr. is the all-important game manager. <a href=https://thejnotes.com/2021/10/02/utah-jazz-ranking-important-players/"https://thejnotes.com/2021/08/15/ranking-utah-jazz-big-3-nbas-best-trios/6/">Outside of Salt Lake City’s big 3</a>, however, it’s hard to make absolute claims about who the most important players to the Jazz’s championship cause will be in the upcoming season.</p>
<p>That won’t stop us from trying.</p>
<p>Here, we’ll rank the 5 most important players for the Utah Jazz heading into the 2021-22 season. We’ll be looking at some of the usual metrics: Box Plus/Minus (BPM), Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). With that said, we won’t strictly adhere to those measures either. After all, numbers can be noisy, and sometimes it can be best to trust your gut.</p>
<p>Or not. Either way, you’re not here for life advice. You’re here to see the five most important players on the Utah Jazz entering the 2021-22 season.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background: #00265D" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://thejnotes.com/2021/10/02/utah-jazz-ranking-important-players/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> 5. Bojan Bogdanovic </a>
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had a strong case for a placement above either of the next two players listed in this article</a> over the 2020-21 season.</p>
<p>We’ll compare him to Donovan Mitchell, as a comparison between Conley Jr and Rudy Gobert veers too closely into apples/oranges territory. Over 2020-21, Conley Jr.’s BPM was significantly higher than Mitchell’s, at 4.4 to 3.5. Meanwhile, Mitchell barely edged the veteran floor general in VORP, at 2.5 to 2.4. Mitchell did enjoy a significant advantage in PER, at 21.3 to 19.2, but again, PER is a metric that particularly favors players who rack up basic counting stats.</p>
<p>That’s more-so Mitchell’s responsibility than Conley Jr.’s, and obviously, we’re designating Mitchell as the more important player here. However, that does little to sell Conley Jr.’s value short. He averaged 16.2 points per game while shooting 41.2% in 6.6 three-point attempts per game last season, with 6.0 assists per game to boot. Those numbers are particularly striking in the context of his 23.1% usage rate: a modest number for a player of Conley Jr.’s ilk.</p>
<p>That’s the beauty of Conley Jr.’s game. He can dominate the ball if Quin Snyder asks him to, or slip comfortably into an off-ball, floor-spacing role and function as an elite supporting player while Mitchell dictates the offense. His 0.9 Defensive Box Plus Minus (DBPM) from 2020-21 won’t earn him Defensive Player of the Year consideration, but it’s a nice figure from a 33-year-old, 6’1 point guard.</p>
<p>The Utah Jazz could not ask anything more from Conley Jr. in 2021-22: besides, of course, good health.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background: #00265D" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://thejnotes.com/2021/10/02/utah-jazz-ranking-important-players/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> 2. Rudy Gobert </a>
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his elite rim protection is a defensive system in-and-of-itself</a>, and Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder will inevitably continue taking advantage of it.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background: #00265D" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://thejnotes.com/2021/10/02/utah-jazz-ranking-important-players/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> 1. Donovan Mitchell </a>
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the most important player to their future</a>.</p>
<p>At 25, Mitchell’s development has been ahead of schedule since he averaged 20.5 points per game as a rookie. He’s been the most significant part of this Utah Jazz offensive attack ever since. Mitchell uses his athletic gifts in tandem with a series of shifty, evasive maneuvers to get to the rim and finish at will. Furthermore, he’s a consistently efficient three-point shooter as well, shooting 38.6% on 8.7 attempts per game last season.</p>
<p>His ability to score from any part of the floor makes him the focal point of every opposing team’s scouting report. That makes him a unique challenge when flanked by the kind of supporting cast we’ve already highlighted in this article.</p>
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<p>The depth of this Utah Jazz team makes them a challenging proposition for any opposing defense. It’s notable that in this ranking of the five most important players on the roster, we did not include reigning Sixth Man of the Year Jordan Clarkson, or 3-and-D glue guy Royce O’Neale. Quin Snyder’s top 7 players should be the envy of teams across the National Basketball Association.</p><!—pageview_candidate—>">