Utah Jazz: The starting lineup is in need of tweaking

The Utah Jazz starting lineup, particularly the trio of Ricky Rubio, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, has struggled of late. And the team absolutely needs to make a change.

The Utah Jazz were recently on a tear that saw them win six straight games, most of them in commanding fashion. However, recent back-to-back losses have seemingly brought them back down to earth in a big way.

The first was a disappointing blown lead to the Oklahoma City Thunder which saw the Jazz falter down the stretch after suffering a terrible scoreless drought to start out the final period of play. The next was a loss to the Houston Rockets which saw Houston absolutely obliterate Utah in the third quarter and hold on to win comfortably.

Granted, both of these games were pretty understandable losses (setting the blown lead aspect to one side). The contest against the Thunder was a road bout on the wrong end of a back-to-back while the Houston Rockets are one of the best teams in the league and currently atop the Western Conference. Neither defeat was all that unexpected and neither is a death knell to Utah’s season by any stretch of the imagination.

However, within those losses, something extremely noticeable stands out – Utah’s starting lineup, principally the trio of Ricky Rubio, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, simply isn’t working out.

On the season, the Rubio/Favors/Gobert three-man lineup has been one of the worst the Jazz have rolled out and by far the worst that has posted significant minutes. In 14.6 minutes per game, they are posting a plus/minus of -4.2 and in 219 total minutes they have a net rating of -15.5. For reference, the next worst trio that has played at least 100 minutes together is Joe Ingles, Favors and Gobert at -9.0.

That’s a significant difference and when taking minutes played together into consideration, there’s simply no denying that having Rubio, Favors, and Gobert on the floor together has been painful for the Jazz.

It’s been even worse over the past two games. Just when it looked like the Jazz were figuring things out with Rudy Gobert out with injury, one game removed from Utah’s mind-blowing win over the Washington Wizards they seemed to revert back to their woeful ways from before the win streak.

The Rubio/Favors/Gobert trio has been the team’s sixth-worst lineup during that stretch at a minus-6.0 and they’ve posted a net rating of -39.9. Granted, those three haven’t logged all that much time together during the past two games – just 6.2 minutes per game – but their failure to jive with one another has made even those few minutes painful and it has negatively impacted the Jazz in a big way.

I’m far from the only one to notice this as several Jazz writers were quick to point it out yesterday as well as you can see below.

These two from Basketball Insiders’ Ben Dowsett really stood out to me:

In short, something has to be done. Something has to change. As nice as it would be if Ricky Rubio could live up to the expectations of a starting point guard and get things going with Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert – Utah’s two best bigs by a long shot – to make for a clean-cut starting five, that simply has not happened.

Perhaps Rubio is moved to the bench, maybe Favors and Gobert are split up and one simply has to deal with lessened playing time for the time being. Whatever the solution is, it’s clear that the starting lineup as currently constructed is a detriment to the team and can’t just stay the same. Even though Quin Snyder has removed Favors pretty quickly in games to split that pair up as fast as possible, to me the major question is, why start with them on together at all if it’s simply not going to work?

Coach Snyder hasn’t hesitated to make lineup changes before. We saw it last year with a constant point guard carousel and with Joe Ingles taking Rodney Hood’s spot, as well as this year with Donovan Mitchell being quickly inserted as a starter. Therefore, as this starting lineup and particularly the trio of Rubio, Favors and Gobert continues to struggle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him shake things up pretty significantly.

My two cents – I’d like to see Rubio in a reduced role. His impact on both ends of the floor has been minimal and he’s been largely outplayed by Donovan Mitchell and even Raul Neto. In terms of the two bigs, they almost certainly have to be split up and though the answer may eventually be that the Jazz opt to part ways with one of the two, for now there has to be a balance with chemistry taken into consideration, particularly regarding who can run the pick-and-roll best with who.

Thus far, Rubio-Gobert pick-and-rolls have been far from effective, so reserving Rubio’s minutes for when Favors is on the court may be the best idea. However, if Rubio is considered a key part of Utah’s future beyond this season, then just trying to eliminate his time with Gobert probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. If anything, he needs more reps with him to get accustomed to his game.

As you can tell, this is not an easy decision. And in a lot of ways I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make it. Fortunately, I have the utmost confidence in Quin Snyder and Dennis Lindsey getting this thing ironed out, but the worst option is to simply do nothing and continue to produce the same results, so hopefully there is a change to the rotations soon.

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Although it was against comparatively subpar competition, the Jazz finally appeared to be humming on offense during their recent six-game winning streak, but that flow has taken a significant step backwards in the past two losses where Utah’s starting lineup just hasn’t been able to get it done.

That’s an alarming sign, to be sure, and one that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later as Utah prepares to embark on a six-game road trip and continue on an incredibly daunting month of December.