Smart Player, Smart Coach
Before the Utah Jazz front office pulled the trigger to acquire Mike Conley, I’m positive they scoured over hours of film to make sure he could fit in Quin Snyder’s system.
On paper, it works out great. You pair Mike Conley, who was in the 80th percentile as a pick and roll ball handler in the 2018-19 season with Rudy Gobert, who was in the 93rd percentile as a rolling big man in that same year.
You pair Conley, who was in the 80th percentile for spot up shooting, with Donovan Mitchell, a scoring guard that thrives when he’s slashing to the hoop.
For comparison Rubio was in the 30th percentile on spot ups, and 38th percentile as pick and roll ball handler last season. Ideally this move was supposed to open up space for Gobert and Mitchell and take the scoring pressure off of their shoulders.
Conley was on-board for the Jazz’s title run right from the get-go.
via ESPN.com
"“I think we all see that it’s an opportunity for all of us to have that aspiration,” Conley said. “We all want to win a championship. And especially myself, it’s something I’ve really been looking for my whole career and have gotten close and never been able to push through. “And now it seems like it’s the time — this year especially, there’s not too many teams with three big-time, top-five, top-10 guys on a team. It’s kind of split up, so it’s a great opportunity for the Jazz to just be ourselves, continue to improve as the season goes on, and we’ll be there at the end of the year knocking at the door.”"
Although this acquisition hasn’t gone totally according to plan so far, there is way too much basketball I.Q on the team for this not to work.
The Jazz have already proved several times this season they have the ability to learn and adapt. When they posted the worst defensive rating in the preseason, Quin Snyder focused only on defense for the next week in practice sessions. They opened up the regular season silencing critics that their elite defense would disappear, holding their first five opponents to less than 100 points.
When they lost two close games to the Kings and Clippers thanks to a lack of rebounding effort, Conley was the leader by example to fix that flaw. He said “I told them they can fine me $100 every time I miss a box-out from now on”, and followed up his talk with six rebounds the following game.
Furthermore, the Jazz found a way to win without Donovan Mitchell on Sunday night in Washington D.C, and there’s no reason to think they won’t adapt with Conley back in the rotation.