Career 3-Point Percentage
Let’s kick things off with a stat that’s simple but crucially important nonetheless. For his career, Mike Conley is a 37.5 percent 3-point shooter. This is a massive upgrade over former Jazz point guard Ricky Rubio whose career mark is just 32.2 percent. He was even worse in his final season with the Jazz as he went 31.1 percent.
But what has been even more frustrating about Rubio is that he’s known as such a non-shooter, that teams would often forego defending him at all on the perimeter. Per NBA.com’s shots tracker, the overwhelming majority of Rubio’s threes came on wide open shots this past season, on which he converted on only 33.8 percent of them. Yikes.
Meanwhile, on those same shots – threes with the closest defender being six feet away or more – Mike Conley shot a scorching 43.3 percent. Considering that the Jazz produced the fourth most wide open threes of any team in the league in 2018-19, this should have fans licking their chops.
Rather than having to watch Ricky Rubio clunk wide open threes, they’ll be able to enjoy Conley converting at a high clip. Not only that, but the gravity that he’ll command on offense will be entirely different from what Rubio did. No longer will it be opponents’ game plan to leave Utah’s point guard wide open and force him to take a shot. Instead, they’ll be highly focused on Conley who can be a problem night in and night out.
As such, the Jazz’s offense as a whole will have much more space to operate with Donovan Mitchell able to use more room to create or drive and kick, and the likes of Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors having greater ability to roll to the rim and score or dish in the pick and roll. The Jazz have long had a tendency to go through major droughts on offense while dealing with packed paint. Conley’s presence as a deep-ball threat, though, should help alleviate that issue entirely.
In the simplest of terms, Rubio wasn’t a shooter at all, and Conley definitely is. His ability to torch the nets from three will instantly make the Jazz significantly more prolific offensively.