Utah Jazz: Ranking the 5 most important players on the 2021-22 roster

If you’re still picking your jaw up off the floor from Ingles’ placement, here’s a spoiler: there won’t be any more surprises to be found here.

(Also, an aside: stop underrating Joe Ingles).

Fans of the Utah Jazz know who the three most important players on this team are. What some may not realize is that Mike Conley Jr. had a strong case for a placement above either of the next two players listed in this article over the 2020-21 season.

We’ll compare him to Donovan Mitchell, as a comparison between Conley Jr and Rudy Gobert veers too closely into apples/oranges territory. Over 2020-21, Conley Jr.’s BPM was significantly higher than Mitchell’s, at 4.4 to 3.5. Meanwhile, Mitchell barely edged the veteran floor general in VORP, at 2.5 to 2.4. Mitchell did enjoy a significant advantage in PER, at 21.3 to 19.2, but again, PER is a metric that particularly favors players who rack up basic counting stats.

That’s more-so Mitchell’s responsibility than Conley Jr.’s, and obviously, we’re designating Mitchell as the more important player here. However, that does little to sell Conley Jr.’s value short. He averaged 16.2 points per game while shooting 41.2% in 6.6 three-point attempts per game last season, with 6.0 assists per game to boot. Those numbers are particularly striking in the context of his 23.1% usage rate: a modest number for a player of Conley Jr.’s ilk.

That’s the beauty of Conley Jr.’s game. He can dominate the ball if Quin Snyder asks him to, or slip comfortably into an off-ball, floor-spacing role and function as an elite supporting player while Mitchell dictates the offense. His 0.9 Defensive Box Plus Minus (DBPM) from 2020-21 won’t earn him Defensive Player of the Year consideration, but it’s a nice figure from a 33-year-old, 6’1 point guard.

The Utah Jazz could not ask anything more from Conley Jr. in 2021-22: besides, of course, good health.