Utah Jazz’s 2017-18 defense may have been the best in team history

Rudy Gobert took home Defensive Player of the Year honors for 2017-18 and the  Utah Jazz were second overall in team defense. Could the Jazz defense get even better?

Before the start of the 2017-18 season, I theorized that the Utah Jazz could be field one of the best defenses in team history, led by 2016-17 DPOY runner-up Rudy Gobert.

So, how did that prediction pan out? Let’s dig in…

The Gobert Factor

Rudy Gobert missed 26 games in ’17-18, which was nearly a third of the regular season. Without Gobert, the Jazz defense was certainly not top-tier. However, despite Rudy only playing two-thirds of the season, the Jazz ended up a tick behind the Boston Celtics for the best defense in the NBA (we’re talking around 0.01 in differential).

Per Basketball-Reference.com, the Jazz were also 6.8 points better in defensive rating with Gobert on the court, for the largest differential on the team.

Of course, Gobert also took home DPOY honors, making him the first player to ever receive the hardware while playing as few games as Gobert.

Here’s a look at the top players in win shares per 48 minutes. Of course, with Gobert, these have mostly been contributed by defensive win shares. In any event, the Jazz star is seventh on the list since ’15-16.

In ’16-17, Gobert had 14.1 win shares. Last year, he notched 8.1 in a season during which he missed 26 games.

https://twitter.com/NBA_Math/status/1015336602976096257

I don’t know what else I can say about Rudy Gobert. He transforms the Jazz from a middling defensive squad into an elite force.

Can the Jazz get even better next season?

Yes! And I expect that they will. Assuming Gobert stays healthy (please, please, please) and Dante Exum (also stays healthy) and Royce O’Neale can pick up where they left off in the playoffs after guarding James Harden, the Jazz can truly set themselves apart as an elite defensive force.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that Jae Crowder and Thabo Sefolosha will be here for a full season to play defense on threes and fours? Don’t forget that Joe Ingles and (potentially) Grayson Allen are around to harass anyone who is left. This is all neglecting that Donovan Mitchell, who was first touted as a 3-and-D player and still should make a second-year jump as a defender.

This team is STACKED (defensively).

Was my prediction accurate? Drum roll…..

I predicted that this team could be the best Jazz defensive team of all time. Was that accurate? Or even close?

I put together some data from Basketball-Reference.com to find out.

If you compare the Jazz defensive rating for each of the past 24 seasons, the ’17-18 squad posted the best mark when you compare to the league average. Further below the mean than any other Jazz in the past 24 seasons. Is 24 seasons equivalent to all time? No, of course not, but that was as far as I wanted to go and gave us a really good sample.

Note that if you only look at the games in which Gobert actually played, the differential is even better.

With all the players returning to form and a full season of Exum, Crowder and Sefolosha, among the other Jazz players, this team should take another leap.

Defense wins championships.