Utah Jazz: The addition of familiar faces will bring difference-making improvement

The Utah Jazz improved this offseason

NBA free agency season commenced last week and teams were active with big roster moves leading up to the late December season start.

At this point, you could make the argument that the Los Angeles Lakers have won the offseason after acquiring Dennis Schroder, Marc Gasol, and Montrezl Harrell, the Phoenix Suns took a leap by acquiring Chris Paul, and teams like the Philadelphia 76ers, Dallas Mavericks, and Portland Trail Blazers knocked it out of the park with their respective moves.

However, the Utah Jazz is another team that has made some under-the-radar moves that should pay off big this upcoming season.

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While others signed new players to bring into their systems, Utah opted for bringing back some familiar faces. After trading away Tony Bradley and Ed Davis for second-round picks and bags of potato chips, Utah announced they re-signed guard Jordan Clarkson to a four-year, $52 million contract. Not even two hours after that, Utah agreed to a three-year, $30 million contract with a hometown favorite – forward/center Derrick Favors.

For non-Jazz fans, these signings aren’t exactly juicy – some might even say boring. But these moves are huge for a Jazz team that now looks like they could push for a top-3 seed in the West.

Jordan Clarkson

There’s a lazy narrative out there that Jordan Clarkson is nothing more than an erratic ball hog scorer who thinks he’s Michael Jordan and doesn’t help you win (this comes from his times playing on the highly-terrible, last Kobe season Lakers). However, with the Jazz last season, Clarkson showed serious growth in his offensive game because of the change of his shot distribution.

Early in his career, Clarkson took 25 percent of his shots as long 2s and averaged 3.6 3-point attempts per game – with the Jazz, Clarkson was now only taking 10 percent of his shots as long 2s and attempted six 3-pointers a game. By replacing bad one-on-one mid-range shots with more threes, Clarkson blossomed to a leading sixth man of the year candidate and averaged almost 16 points per game.

Jordan Clarkson brings the ability to have a second scorer on the floor and is someone that doesn’t need the ball to be effective. By trading Dante Exum for Clarkson, the Jazz offense immediately went from a clunky struggle-fest (106 offensive rating) to a high-powered juggernaut that could blow teams off the floor (117 offensive rating).

Keeping Clarkson to play alongside Donovan Mitchell, Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdonovic guarantee that the Jazz will have high-level scoring on the floor at all times.

Derrick Favors

Bringing Derrick Favors back to Utah, the move lets the Jazz potentially gain back what was their strength in prior years – defense. From 2016 to 2019, the Jazz was the best defensive team in the NBA. With Favors and Rudy Gobert sharing or splitting time on the floor, teams just had no chance to get to the rim consistently.

When Favors was on the floor in 2018-2019, Utah held opponents to a low 104 offensive rating (six points below the league average of 110). While he may not be at Gobert’s level defensively, Favors is still an absolute beast defending the rim and the paint.

So why did the Jazz move on from him in the first place? Scoring. When Gobert and Favors were on the floor together, two bigs that can’t stretch the floor beyond 15 feet, it was tough for Jazz starters to generate enough scoring to keep up with teams like Houston or Golden State. So the Jazz moved on from Favors and brought in Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic (and later Jordan Clarkson) to give more floor spacing for Quin Snyder’s offense.

It worked for the most part – when the Jazz had Mitchell, Conley, Bogdanovic, and Gobert on the floor, they we’re one of the three best offenses in the league. But the lack of guard size and no real rim protection after Rudy Gobert made Utah only an average defensive team in the league – no longer a top defensive group. This was on full display in the playoffs against the Nuggets, where they couldn’t stop Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Michael Porter Jr., or even a nosebleed.

With Favors back as a power forward and primary backup center, Utah will have that length and rim protection for an entire game.

Favors is also an underrated offensive talent – he shoots 60 percent within 16 feet and is a plus offensive rebounder. He’s also a great pick-and-roll player if he has the enough floor space (the Joe Ingles-Derrick Favors pick-and-roll was borderline unstoppable at times a few years ago). In general, the Jazz straight-up cooked teams with Favors as a backup center in 2018, averaging almost a plus-20 point differential per 100 possessions. Getting 12-14 minutes a night of Favors at backup center will make this current bench unit a force once again.

The Jazz will have to use Gobert and Favors together again if they want to combat big teams like the Lakers and Nuggets, which gives me some pause because the offense sputtered with those two before. However, if you consider Utah now has two of the best catch and shoot 3-point shooters (Conley and Bogdanovic) on the team plus an improved Donovan Mitchell, there’s reason to believe that lineup could be great on both ends of the floor.

A Utah Jazz overview

The Utah Jazz by no means made the splashiest moves this offseason, but they didn’t need to. By re-signing Jordan Clarkson and getting back Derrick Favors, it’s clear the Jazz front office believes they’re close to a championship run.

The Jazz roster is very deep and very flexible, able to maneuver tactics against other Western Conference contenders. Whether or not they can push the Lakers for the title will depend more on the continued growth of Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley within Quin Snyder’s system. The Jazz were successful this offseason simply by not getting worse – but if you look closer, the Jazz actually got much better.