For NBA teams vying to hoist the prestigious Larry O’Brien trophy, the Big 3 model of building around three elite players has become a staple. Luckily for fans of the Utah Jazz, their squad boasts one of the best.
Several factors are significant when evaluating a team’s Big 3, but two emerge as the most important: how good are the players, and how well do they fit together? Ideally, any trio of elite NBA players features a balanced combination of shot creation, playmaking and defense. Three elite ball handlers who can’t shoot consistently will inevitably step on each other’s toes. Three elite shooters who can’t penetrate defenses will struggle to create the space each needs to utilize that elite shooting.
With these considerations in mind, how does the Utah Jazz‘s triumvirate of Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Mike Conley Jr. stack up with the best Big 3s in the Association?
For reference, we’ve included each trio’s collective average Player Efficiency Rating (PER) from the 2020-21 season. With that in mind, we didn’t rank the trios based strictly on this measure. The criteria for the rankings is part objective (average PER) and part subjective (fit).
Here are the 5 best trios entering the 2021-22 NBA season, and how four of them compare to the Utah Jazz’s Big 3: