What if the Utah Jazz were more clutch in 2015-16?

Near the end of the 2015-16 season, the Utah Jazz were on the bubble of making the playoffs for the first time in the Quin Snyder era. One has to ask the question “what if” with this group.

I’ll always remember the 2015-16 Utah Jazz team as one of the funner teams to watch. They were supposed to be a team on the rise after their exciting finish to the 2014-15 season.

Unlike that previous year where they had to acclimate to a new coaching staff and filter out failed draft picks (Enes Kanter, Trey Burke) with new prospects (Rudy Gobert, Dante Exum), this Jazz team had an incredible chance to test their 29 game sample size where they went 19-10, and make a run at the playoffs.

Continued growth was anticipated to happen for every major contributor on the roster, except for maybe Trevor Booker who was at the peak of his NBA career. Other than that though, you had rookies-turned-sophomores who were ready for bigger roles (Joe Ingles, Rodney Hood).

There was Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors, who were earning every penny of their post-rookie deal extensions. There was Alec Burks, who had potential for developing into a good sixth man if he could stay healthy enough.

There was Rudy Gobert, who was the most anxious of the group to prove he wasn’t a one-hit-wonder in 2014-15. And of course, there was Quin Snyder, the mad scientist that took a 25 win team to 38 wins in the blink of an eye.

I predicted this group to win 45 games and make the seventh seed in the Western Conference playoffs. This was a big deal to me and most Jazz fans, given that they hadn’t made the playoffs since 2012.

For the most part, they looked like a playoff team all season long. According to their net rating (1.8), this team played good enough to make the playoffs comfortably that year. The Miami Heat, who won 48 games and nabbed the third seed in the Eastern Conference, had a slightly worse net rating than the Utah Jazz.

One team was just a single win away from making the conference finals, while the other missed out completely on the joy of playing postseason basketball. What was the difference between the two teams if they were on the same level analytically?

The answer: closing out games.

That year, the Jazz had owned the third worst winning percentage of games within five points, or in other words, they were choke masters.

Only the Phoenix Suns and Philadelphia 76ers were worse. For context, the Suns were imploding because of trade demands from their best player, and the firing of head coach Jeff Hornacek. The 76ers took “Trusting the Process” to an extreme, winning just 10 games.

What makes this hurt even more is the memories I have of the 2015-16 Jazz team playing dominantly! They beat the Indiana Pacers in overtime, a game in which Energy Solutions Arena had a true playoff atmosphere!

There was the seven game winning streak, which included another fantastic duel. Gordon Hayward went toe-to-toe with Jimmy Butler, and made an awesome dunk in crunch time thanks to Joe Ingles threading the needle with the pass.

And how can we forget, the game in Dallas! Rodney Hood made an impossible fade-away three from the left corner to send the game to overtime, and Gordon Hayward made the game-winning shot minutes later.

There was the tight game with the Golden State Warriors, where the Jazz almost played well enough to put a dent in their shiny win-loss record and beat an All-Time great team.

There was the game where Rodney Hood tied the franchise record for 3-pointers made in a game, with eight triples! He made them all in the first half, and could have easily made more if he got more playing time during that blowout victory.

What a way to send Kobe Bryant off into the sunset, right Salt Lake City?

If the Jazz had just been able to win two more clutch games, they would have snuck in the playoffs. If they had been able to win clutch games the way they have this season (.694 winning percentage), then they would have gone 55-27 and gotten homecourt advantage in the playoffs.

If the tiniest of tweaks would have been made to this team, such as better luck with injuries, or acquiring Joe Johnson one year sooner, this team could have gone really deep in the playoffs.

Perhaps that would have been enough to convince Gordon Hayward to stay, and the roster would look a lot different now than it does today. Would there be a need to trade-up for Donovan Mitchell on 2017 draft night?

Would George Hill still have been acquired the summer of 2016, and would he have stayed more than one year in Utah? Would Rudy Gobert have been recognized a little bit earlier with individual awards?

There’s a lot of possibilities that could have happened with that old squad, but ultimately it had to all be broken up except for Joe Ingles, Rudy Gobert, and the remainder of that coaching staff. Luckily for the Jazz, they have a core of two All-Stars and one of the best coaches in the league to build around at the moment.