Utah Jazz rotation proposal: Give all Derrick Favors time to Ersan Ilyasova
As for Derrick Favors, the Utah Jazz’s 6-foot-9, 265-pound backup big man has poured in all of six points across his 64 minutes against the Los Angeles Clippers. He’s done so while going 3-for-7 from the field and 0-for-2 from the charity stripe.
Granted, his 15 rebounds, four blocks, and two steals in this series are respectable. However, when factoring in the 15 fouls that Favors has committed versus the Clippers on his way to compiling those stats, one now has to wonder if better backup options exist down low.
One does.
Besides, even if this proposed change would appear to be a bit of a ding to the Jazz’s interior D, it’s not as if Favors is regularly stifling the Los Angeles attack. And the 29-year-old is definitely not scaring the opposition one iota on the other end of the floor.
With that in mind, whatever happened to Ersan Ilyasova, a 6-foot-9, 235-pound power forward who went 15-for-28 beyond the arc between his last 10 appearances in the regular season?
Obviously, the defense suffers whenever three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert is on the bench. Yet during those spans, Utah could enjoy a practically unstoppable 3-point attack.
Surely, if the 34-year-old Ilyasova, who has 52 games of playoff experience under his belt, was to come in and begin splashing 3-pointers, then the Clippers would be the ones searching for answers on how to guard a Jazz lineup that features five bonafide outside shooters.
In summary here, note that up until their latest outing, these 2020-21 Jazzmen had never lost three games in a row. Now, with Kawhi Leonard still out of commission for the Los Angeles Clippers, a fourth straight L would go down in the Utah history books as an epic disappointment.
Indeed, it’s beyond the time to no longer accept zeroes across any individual’s stat line. Fortunately for seventh-year Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder, though, it’s still not too late to make the necessary changes.