Utah Jazz rank 2018-19: Royce O’Neale checks in at No. 8

The play of Royce O’Neale was one of the biggest surprises of the Utah Jazz’s 2017-18 season. He won’t be catching anyone off guard in year two.

A lot can change in year — just ask Utah Jazz forward Royce O’Neale. Last October, he was a virtual unknown battling Joel Bolomboy for the 15th and final spot on Utah’s opening night roster. 12 months later, O’Neale has a burgeoning reputation as one of the NBA’s best perimeter defenders.

He hits our ongoing preseason player rankings at No. 8, and I may be underrating him. On a team that prides itself in smothering opponents, few players consistently put the clamps down like O’Neale.

Last season, the Jazz allowed just 96.8 points per 100 possessions when O’Neale was on the court. That number was tops among Jazzmen who played 1,000 or more minutes for the team. He owned individual match-ups as well; opponents’ field goal percentages dropped four percent (and five percent from distance) when O’Neale was the closest defender.

Also — his defensive real plus/minus score of 1.97 matched teammate Thabo Sefolosha‘s mark as the ninth-best league-wide among small forwards. And his defensive box plus/minus number of 2.7 matched that of the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green. That would have been a top 15 mark had he qualified for leader boards.

These are big-time numbers, but what really separates O’Neale from the likes of Chris Johnson and/or Elijah Millsap — high-level Jazz wing defenders of yore — is his offensive ability.

Unlike the aforementioned, O’Neale can handle the ball and pass a little. More importantly, he can make an outside shot. He hit on just under 36 percent of his triples as a rookie and was a 42-percent shooter on left corner threes. If he can get better above the break, where he was under 33 percent, it’ll be hard to keep him off the floor.

Over the summer, O’Neale has worked to become even more viable offensively, focusing on his handles and ability to play in the pick-and-roll.

One has to wonder, too, what effect being Donovan Mitchell-adjacent throughout the offseason will have. O’Neale’s association with Utah’s top dog definitely opened some doors for him, i.e. workouts with the likes of James Harden and Chris Paul. Sharing the court with the best is never a bad thing.

Despite his continued evolution, though, I anticipate O’Neale playing a role similar to the one he did toward the end of last season and extending into the playoffs. He’ll be a rotation regular, Coach Quin Snyder will occasionally give him additional run for match-up reasons and he’ll also be a fill-in starter if injuries strike.

In ’17-18, he put up five points and just over three boards in 17 minutes per game. Look for those numbers to improve in year two, if only incrementally. That said, he’s capable of more and gives the Jazz a pretty hefty insurance policy on the cheap should they get thinned out on the wings.

The 2018-19 Utah Jazz preseason player rankings countdown to date —

20) Jairus Lyles
19) Trey Lewis
18) Isaac Haas
17) Naz Mitrou-Long
16) Tyler Cavanaugh
15) Tony Bradley
14) Georges Niang
13) Raul Neto
12) Ekpe Udoh
11) Alec Burks
10) Grayson Allen
9) Thabo Sefolosha