Utah Jazz ’17-18 Season Review: Royce O’Neale finds a home

After an uphill climb to make it to the NBA, Royce O’Neale capitalized on his opportunity with the Utah Jazz this season.

You would be hard pressed to find a better story of perseverance than that of Royce O’Neale. O’Neale went largely unrecruited coming out of high school and was an unranked prospect. He started his basketball career at the unheralded University of Denver, but was able to transfer to a larger basketball school in Baylor University.

He would start all 38 games his senior year at Baylor, averaging 10 points, six rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, and helped lead Baylor to a 24-10 record during the regular season. Despite that solid play, he would go undrafted, and later spent his first two seasons overseas, playing his first season in Germany and then his second in Spain.

He would eventually catch the attention of the Utah Jazz due to his defense first mentality and his ability to rebound from the wing position. Based on his strong performance in the Summer League, the Jazz took a flyer on him, and invited O’Neale to participate in training camp and the preseason. As the start of the regular season approached, it was clear that the final roster spot would come down to Joel Bolomboy and O’Neale.

This seems like a lifetime ago, but the Jazz faced a truly difficult decision in which player to sign. Based on preseason production alone, Bolomboy was actually the obvious choice. He averaged 10 points per game in just 8.7 minutes per game. He also showed a much-improved stroke from three-point range and not just in corner threes either. He was taking and making above the break threes.

Despite the play of Bolomboy, the Jazz awarded the final roster spot to Royce O’Neale, and now, eight months later, we’ve all but forgotten Bolomboy was ever on the team. O’Neale had such an impressive rookie season that he would go on to start five playoff games in the second round, and average 23.5 minutes per game during the playoffs.

Throughout the season, O’Neale established himself as a solid rotational player in the NBA. He made a positive impact on this Jazz team because he consistently played to his strengths and was never a detriment to the team.

His counting numbers will never jump off the page. He averaged just five points and 3.4 rebounds per game. You have to dig a little deeper to see the effect he had on the game.

Of players who played at least 50 games and averaged 15 or more minutes, O’Neale had the second best defensive rating in the entire NBA. At 97.3, his defensive rating was even better than Rudy Gobert‘s. Of qualified wing players, he was tops in the league. He also had the sixth best defensive real plus-minus of all small forwards.

When Thabo Sefolosha went down with a season ending injury, Royce O’Neale was asked to step into a larger role. He would often guard the opposing team’s top perimeter threat, and in the playoffs would guard players like Russell Westbrook, Paul George and James Harden.

The surprise for O’Neale this season came on the offensive side of the ball. While he is not a dominant scorer, he proved to be a positive impact on the offensive side of the ball, because he rarely broke off from Quin Snyder’s system.

Per Cleaning the Glass, O’Neale took 43 percent of his shots at the rim, 20 percent of his shots came from the corner three, and 37 percent overall came from three-point range. That is an extremely efficient player. He also shot close to 36 percent from three and 41 percent from the corner three.

During Utah’s 11-game winning streak he would set a career high in scoring twice. First by scoring 18 points in a crucial win against the San Antonio Spurs, where he would start in place of an injured Donovan Mitchell. Just one week later, he would top that by scoring 19 points against the Phoenix Suns in what would be Utah’s 11th consecutive victory.

O’Neale would save his best for the playoffs, and specifically the second round versus the Houston Rockets. Starting in place of Ricky Rubio, O’Neale would play 30 minutes a game, and averaged 10.4 points, four rebounds and two assists. During the final three playoff games, he averaged 14 points and 4.3 rebounds. He also had one of the dunks of the year, when he threw one down over Clint Capela.

We have seen this before with the Jazz and Joe Ingles. Utah has a knack for finding forgotten players, and cultivating an environment where they can maximize their talents. Could Royce O’Neale be the next Joe Ingles?

Next: Utah Jazz 2018 offseason checklist: Bigs, Burks and wing scoring

In his rookie season, Royce O’Neale proved that he belongs on an NBA roster, and the Jazz clearly made the right decision in selecting O’Neale over Bolomboy. The Jazz have found themselves a gem, and one can only hope that O’Neale will return next season with an even greater impact.