Royce O’Neale
Royce O’Neale was nothing short of a revelation last season. In just a few, short months he went from battling Joel Bolomboy for the team’s 15th and final roster spot to starting meaningful games, playing heavy minutes and locking down James Harden in the West Semifinals.
He did that with grit, great defense and a respectable 3-point shot. In year two, though, he’s had the rug pulled out from him a bit. To date, he’s averaging a meager four points and 2.7 boards per game.
The NBA’s new “freedom of movement rules” may yield the potential for higher pace and more scoring, but if you’re a physical defender like O’Neale, it mitigates much of what made you effective on that side of the ball.
Last season, O’Neale posted an individual D-rating of 104. If you prefer to gauge that in terms of points per 100 possessions scored by the opposition (because D-rating is calculated differently across multiple platforms), the Jazz gave up just 96.8 points/100 poss. when O’Neale played.
This year, those numbers have ballooned to 111 and 106.2/100, respectively. Sure, you could find similar jumps across the roster, but few are as dramatic. And it’s probably fair to say that no player on the roster relied as much on the touching, bumping and bodying up that the new rules seek to stop.
Simply put, he’s been a bad defender in more than one game this season.
Offensively, O’Neale’s overall field goal percentage is up, and he’s shown a greater propensity to take the ball to the rack. Within three feet of the hoop, his percentage is up 10 points to nearly 68 percent, and he’s taking said shots 16 percent more frequently than last season.
That said, his assist percentage is down, his turnover rate is up and his 3-point shot has all but left him. Through 21 games, he’s at just 35 percent from distance and he’s begun to shy away from taking the shot at all.
First-quarter grade: C-, veering toward D+ territory.