Reason No. 1: Quin Snyder is really good and experienced
It might be overly simplistic, but Quin Snyder is just a great coach. He had a nice track record in Utah, helping lead them from a struggling franchise to a consistent playoff team before the franchise jumped into a full-on rebuild (trading away their two best players for a mind-numbing amount of assets) and Snyder stepping down this past offseason.
Snyder amassed a 372-264 record across eight seasons in Utah. He also led them to the playoffs in his final six seasons there (with three of them ending in trips to the 2nd round). Snyder’s .585 winning percentage is a quality number. While it might not jump off the page at you, one must remember that Snyder took over a 25-win team, and helped build them into a consistent contender.
In those final six years under Snyder, Utah was 294-178 (.623). Snyder helped turn a struggling franchise into one of the top teams in the West for several years. Even though things didn’t end particularly well last season, you can’t understate the coaching job that Snyder did in Utah.
Snyder helped lead Utah through the transition of Gordon Hayward leaving in free agency. It’s hard to remember, but that was a move that many people thought would spoil things in Salt Lake City. Instead, Snyder helped lead the Jazz to a 48-win season that very next year (with a rookie as their primary scorer, more on that later).
Not many teams are able to transition from one franchise player to another so smoothly (the players and the drafting obviously had something to do with that), but I believe that helped showcase Snyder’s coaching acumen.