The Los Angeles Lakers will field a star-studded roster in the 2021-22 NBA season. The Utah Jazz still have a chance to be the better team.
The Utah Jazz have had a meaningful-but-understated offseason to date, adding quality rotation pieces in Rudy Gay, Hassan Whiteside and Eric Paschall while retaining veteran floor general Mike Conley Jr. None of these moves necessarily broke the internet, however, each represents a logical addition to a squad that finished the 2020-21 NBA regular season a league best 52-20.
The Los Angeles Lakers, by contrast, had arguably the most eventful off-season in the NBA. They acquired Malik Monk, Kendrick Nunn, Carmelo Anthony, Wayne Ellington, Kent Bazemore, Dwight Howard, Trevor Ariza, and most significantly, former MVP Russell Westbrook.
Pairing Westbrook with LeBron James is akin to a black hole sucking an entire galaxy up and spitting it out on top of another one. Will they collide and explode upon each other, or, will they merge into a new, more powerful super galaxy?
You’d have to ask a theoretical physicist, and frankly, it may take a genius to predict whether James and Westbrook can effectively play together too. However, it is a little easier to foresee that the Utah Jazz will enter the 2021-22 season with plenty of optimism surrounding their ability to succeed against these substantially starrier Lakers.
Here are three reasons the Utah Jazz are designed to counter the Los Angeles Lakers.
Utah Jazz continuity
As previously mentioned, the Lakers will endeavor to incorporate Russell Westbrook, a system within himself, and LeBron James, a (more efficient) system within himself. Last season, Westbrook finished 8th in the NBA with a Usage Rate of 38.7. Directly below him, we find none other than LeBron James, clocking in at an extremely similar 38.6.
It’s no secret that both James and Westbrook are accustomed to dominating their team’s offenses. The predominant concern for the Lakers this season will be determining Westbrook’s role. He is, infamously, a walking triple-double, but his career effective Field Goal percentage (eFG) of 46.7% does not bode well for his fit with James, who traditionally thrives alongside floor spacers and secondary playmakers. Russell Westbrook’s poor shooting is the stuff of legends, and his style of playmaking has not been described as “secondary” in any context throughout his NBA career.
Furthermore, the Lakers are bringing in seven(!) new bodies besides Westbrook. The Utah Jazz, meanwhile, made adjustments on the margins, but will likely be running back a similar core group featuring Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley Jr., Bojan Bogdanovic, Joe Ingles and Jordan Clarkson.
There is great value in continuity. These guys know how to play under Coach Snyder, they know how to play with each other, and they know their roles. They certainly won’t have the same conflicting Usage Rates. Mitchell actually paced both Westbrook and James in Usage Rate last season, with a robust 39.1 mark. The next highest ranking member of the Utah Jazz in that stat was Jordan Clarkson, who racked up his 33.8 usage rate as the team’s sixth man. In other words, Clarkson was quite often carrying the offense with Mitchell off the floor.
The Lakers will not have the luxury of staggering James and Westbrook in that same fashion. That’s what happens with two guys who are making over $40 million dollars a year: they both expect to be on the court in critical moments. Time will tell if the two superstars can co-exist in the same lineup. Time has already told us that the Jazz’s main rotation players can.
Utah Jazz spacing
Projecting the Lakers’ starting lineup this season is like dandruff: cause for significant head scratching. Partially, that’s because Anthony Davis is effectively a center who prefers to play power forward. Davis is an elite player who can thrive at either position, but, one wonders whether the presence of Russell Westbrook will necessitate a full-time shift to the center position.
For the purposes of this exercise, we’re assuming that won’t happen. With that caveat established, here are the projected starting lineups for the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers next season, and each individual player’s three-point percentage and attempts per 36 minutes from 2020-21.
Utah Jazz
C- Rudy Gobert (0%, 0 3PA per 36 minutes)
PF- Bojan Bogdanovic (39%, 7.5)
SF- Royce O’Neale (38.5%, 4.5)
SG- Donovan Mitchell (38.6%, 9.4)
PG- Mike Conley (41.2%, 8.1)
Los Angeles Lakers
C- Marc Gasol (41%, 4.4)
PF- Anthony Davis (26%, 3.1)
SF- Lebron James (36%, 6.8)
SG- Wayne Ellington (42%, 9.2)
PG- Russell Westbrook (31.5%, 4.1)
Based on these projected lineups, we can anticipate the Utah Jazz’s starting lineup shooting 39.3% from three-point range on 29.5 attempts per 36 minutes. Meanwhile, the Lakers’ starting group projects to shoot a subpar 33.2% on slightly lesser volume, on 27.6 attempts per.
Obviously, this is imperfect science. Anthony Davis’ 26% three-point shooting came in the midst of a down season wherein he was clearly affected by injuries. Nonetheless, it isn’t worlds apart from his 31.2% career mark, either. Furthermore, there is another elephant in the room here, and he’s got a 7’9 wingspan.
The fact that the Jazz figure to outpace the Lakers in both efficiency and volume from three-point range with absolute non-spacer Rudy Gobert in their starting lineup speaks volumes. Imagine how this comparison looks if we plug Rudy Gay in as a small-ball 5, or Dwight Howard into Marc Gasol’s spot?
Granted, the Lakers have ample floor-spacing in their reserves, with the additions of Malik Monk, Kent Bazemore and to a lesser extent, Carmelo Anthony. The Jazz have answers, and their names are Joe Ingles, Jordan Clarkson and Rudy Gay.
Ultimately, the Utah Jazz paced the National Basketball Association in three-point shooting last season, firing a league-high 43.1 per game while converting at 39.2%, the league’s second best mark. Answering Utah’s floor-spacing with the addition of Russell Westbrook will present quite the challenge for Lakers Head Coach Frank Vogel.
Utah Jazz roster construction
This is a quality that is intrinsically linked to the two listed above, but it is significant enough to merit its own consideration. The Utah Jazz have a more logically constructed roster than the Los Angeles Lakers.
As previously mentioned, Donovan Mitchell and Jordan Clarkson led last season’s Jazzmen in usage rate, at 39.1 and 33.8 respectively. Meanwhile, the Lakers roster Westbrook (38.7) and Lebron James (38.6). Undeniably, these are four high usage players, but the differences effectively end there.
If necessary, Mitchell and Clarkson can share the floor, as evidenced by Mitchell’s 38.6% three-point shooting. Furthermore, they won’t even need to, as Utah will prefer to close out games with a backcourt of Mitchell and Mike Conley Jr. Clarkson, having recently won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award, is aware that he may not close games.
Russell Westbrook, on the other hand, will probably expect to. His 31.5% shooting from deep last season was a tick higher than his 30.5% career rate. A quick glance at his career marks looks an awful lot like a graduate school classroom: a lot of mid-to-late 20s. He is not the type of floor spacer who is traditionally paired with LeBron James. It poses the Lakers a serious dilemma: they’d prefer the ball in LeBron’s hands, but at the same time, Westbrook offers little-to-nothing without it.
Otherwise, the Utah Jazz round their regular rotation out nicely with the best rim protector in the NBA in Rudy Gobert, a group of low-usage, high-efficiency, defensively sound wings in Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanovic and Royce O’Neale, as well as new additions Rudy Gay, Hassan Whiteside and Eric Paschall.
There is a common thread between all of these players: they know their roles, and they play them effectively. It is clear that the primary playmakers/shot creators are Mitchell, Conley Jr. and Bogdanovic. Royce O’Neale is one of the purest three-and-D wings in the league. Joe Ingles is a consummate jack-of-all-trades. He’s beloved in Salt Lake City for taking smart shots, making smart passes and defending with grit. Hassan Whiteside, having accepted a veteran’s minimum on a team with Rudy Gobert on it, clearly has accepted his place as a backup 5.
Meanwhile, the Lakers’ roster has the makings of a beautiful mess. Carmelo Anthony did a fine job of adjusting to life as a secondary scorer in Portland, but he’s still not as malleable as Bogdanovic, O’Neale or Ingles. Malik Monk shot a blistering 40.1% from three-point range last season, but only after shooting a combined 31.8% over his first three seasons. Can the Lakers be sure that last season wasn’t an aberration?
I think we’ve dedicated enough words to Russell Westbrook, but for the sake of final confirmation: he’s kind of hard to fit into your average NBA offense. The Lakers need four-out spacing as long as he mans the point: Coach Vogel will have to stagger his minutes with Dwight Howard’s, which, depending on Gasol’s availability, could prove difficult. Can he play more than a handful of minutes a night? If not, will Anthony Davis commit to a full-time role as a center, and how will that impact his health, and who will play the 4?
Few could argue that the Los Angeles Lakers are not more talented than the Utah Jazz, with two former MVP winners and a third perennial candidate. Nonetheless, fans in Salt Lake City have ample reason to like their chances against the Lakers. Specifically, those reasons are continuity, spacing and roster construction.