Utah Jazz: Making the case for Joe Ingles as sixth man

Ingles can play with Exum and Mitchell

This is the main reason why I would like to see Joe Ingles coming off the bench. Our primary backup guards are going to be Donovan Mitchell and Dante Exum.

In a vacuum, would you rather have Sefolosha or Ingles playing alongside those two?

Mitchell may have been a stud in the summer league, but he is still a rookie, and he looked like he may struggle initially with decision-making and shot selection. Exum showed real improvement in the Utah Summer League, but while we all hope he becomes the player we thought we were getting with the fifth pick in the draft, he’s not there yet.

With that being the case, it makes sense to have them paired with a player who knows the system and can spend time handling the point guard duties.

That’s Joe Ingles. We saw what he was capable of in the playoffs when asked to be the primary facilitator. In Game 4 of the LA Clippers series, with Gordon Hayward out with food poisoning, he was asked to start the offense more frequently. He finished the game with eight points and a career high 11 assist.

George Hill was a point guard who didn’t need the ball to be effective, so Ingles could easily be the primary ball-handler and facilitator. That isn’t going to be the case with Ricky Rubio. If Ingles starts, he will spend more time without the ball, and will focus on spot-up shooting.

Allowing Ingles to come off the bench would put the ball in his hands more and give him an opportunity to play to his strengths as a point forward. While Sefolosha is a respected veteran and a solid rotational player, pairing him with Mitchell and Exum would make our bench worse and would potentially put too large of a role on the shoulders of Mitchell and Exum.