Utah Jazz: Major media outlet drastically underrates Mike Conley
Utah Jazz point guard Mike Conley’s name has become so synonymous with the ambivalent designation of “underrated” that NBA fans could be forgiven if it’s the first word they’d use to describe him. Recently, CBS Sports were the latest media outlet to do wrong by the NBA veteran in their ranking of the top 15 point guards in the NBA.
We’ll willingly admit that ranking NBA players is a difficult proposition. Any list aspiring to do so is virtually assured to spark controversy. However, in this case, CBS Sports should draw the ire of fans of the Utah Jazz. They just finished naming him the 14th best point guard in the National Basketball Association.
By our count, that’s at least 3 spots too low. It could, in fact, be more. Some of the players ranked ahead of Conley do not have a firm case for their placement, but, it’s not necessarily clear that Conley deserves a ranking ahead of them either. Before we name the 3 point guards we think Conley was clearly snubbed for, we’ll address some of the more complicated cases.
Russell Westbrook placed one spot ahead of Conley at 13th. Westbrook is one of the most divisive players in the NBA. It wouldn’t be difficult to find thousands of fans who would rank the walking triple-double in the top 3. Conversely, one could find credible NBA observers who would leave the high-volume, low-efficiency point guard out of their top 15 altogether. We’ll accept Russ’s placement ahead of Conley (which is not to suggest that we agree with it). Russ is not far removed from receiving an MVP trophy, and whether he deserved it or not, that’s not an accomplishment Conley has so much as sniffed in his NBA career.
Jamal Murray’s placement over the Utah Jazz floor general at 12th is suspect primarily because the talented Canadian figures to miss the majority of the 2021-22 season. However, we’ll grant CBS Sports the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that the rankings existed with the caveat that health was not under consideration. Conley was narrowly more impactful than Murray according to several advanced metrics last season, but if you bake in the latter’s probability to improve at the age of 24, the ranking is justifiable.
Finally, Ben Simmons’ ranked as the 8th best point guard in the NBA heading into the 2021-22 season according to CBS Sports. If any player in the NBA is more divisive than Russell Westbrook, it’s probably Ben Simmons. Evaluating an All-World defender and genius-level passer who can’t shoot has proven complicated for front offices across the National Basketball Association. We’ll opt to avoid the issue, and concede Simmons’ ranking ahead of Conley on this list.
With that said, we simply cannot abide by some of the rankings in this article. We’ll be looking at several advanced metrics, including Player Efficiency Rating (PER), Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and Box Plus/Minus (BPM) to make the case that Mike Conley deserved to be ranked ahead of three players on this list.