Last season, Utah Jazz fans could be forgiven if they watched the NBA Finals with a single thought recurring in their minds: that could have been us.
It really could have been. The Phoenix Suns were not expected to participate in the league’s biggest dance heading into the 2020-21 season. They got there with a combination of luck, grit, and good old fashioned high-quality basketball. Although dropping the Finals to the Milwaukee Bucks, to say that the Suns surpassed expectations would be an understatement.
This season, Phoenix will not have the benefit of tempered expectations. They won’t be slipping under anybody’s radar. Yesterday, we published a piece about FiveThirtyEight’s esteemed projection model. It had the Utah Jazz finishing with the best record in the Western Conference, but it had the Phoenix Suns directly behind them with the second seed.
In fact, the projection had the Suns winning only a single game less than the Jazzmen (54 vs 53). Meanwhile, it gave each squad the same odds of making the playoffs (95%) and winning the title (9%) and actually gave the Suns a 1% better chance at making the NBA Finals (19%).
A thorough comparison of these two squads reinforces FiveThirtyEight’s findings. They’re about as close as close can get. Here, we’ll compare them on the basis of offense, defense and depth to try to figure out which of these two teams figures as most likely to rule the West.
(Assuming, that is, that Russell Westbrook can’t fit with LeBron James).
Utah Jazz vs Phoenix Suns: Offense
Any discussion about the narrow margins separating the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns has to start with a discussion about the narrow margins separating their two star off-guards. If the discussion ended there, the Jazz would walk away the superior offense.
Mitchell bested Booker in just about every category you could imagine in the 2020-21 season. His basic counting stats of 26.4 points and 5.2 assists per game surpassed Booker’s 25.6 and 4.3. He was also better than Booker according to most key metrics, including Player Efficiency Rating (21.3 to 19.2), Offensive Box Plus/Minus (4.1 to 1.4) and Offensive Win Shares (3.9 to 2.9).
Offensively, Donovan Mitchell was better than Devin Booker last season, full stop. Accordingly, the Utah Jazz were better at scoring points than the Phoenix Suns, albeit marginally. Utah’s fourth-rated 116.5 Offensive Rating narrowly edged Phoenix’s seventh-rated 116.3 mark.
Looking at each team’s roster, last season’s results correspond with any objective observer’s expectations. Both teams roster a somewhat-offensively-limited rim-runner at the starting 5 spot, but Rudy Gobert’s veteran guile allowed him to post a higher Offensive Box Plus/Minus (OBPM) than Deandre Ayton last season at 2.0 to 0.9.
At the forward spots, Mikal Bridges and Royce O’Neale are similar 3-and-D archetypes who effectively cancel each other out. On the other hand, the Phoenix Suns also started Jae Crowder, a similar model. He’s a highly-effective role player, but he lacks the offensive polish of Bojan Bogdanovic, as reflected by his superior Offensive Win Shares (OWS) last season (2.7 vs 1.4).
Chris Paul, uncontroversially, is better than Mike Conley. He’s just not better by a large enough margin to lift the Phoenix Suns’ offense to higher heights than the ones reached by the Utah Jazz. It’s a close call, but the Jazz had a better offense than the Suns last season, and they figure to do so again in 2021-22.
Verdict: Utah Jazz
Utah Jazz vs Phoenix Suns: Defense
A comparison between these two teams’ offensive attacks started with a comparison between their two dynamic young off-guards. A comparison of their defenses starts where a comparison between defenses often starts: in the middle.
Unfortunately for the Suns, Deandre Ayton is not nearly ready to be compared to 3x Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. Pick a defensive metric, and the Utah Jazz center outperformed Ayton in 2020-21. His Defensive Rating of 101 trounced Ayton’s subpar 109 mark. His Defensive Box Plus Minus (DBPM) of 2.5 shattered Ayton’s 0.0. He also posted 5.2 Defensive Win Shares (DWS) to Ayton’s 3.1.
It’s not exactly breaking news that Rudy Gobert is a better defensive (and overall) player than Deandre Ayton, but it is significant in understanding why the Utah Jazz had a better Defensive Rating than the Phoenix Suns in 2020-21 (107.5 vs 110.4). In fact, Gobert’s superiority to Ayton in preventing points is significant enough that the Jazz posted a higher Defensive Rating than the Suns in spite of the Suns starting two plus defenders in their forward positions compared to Utah’s one.
Jae Crowder may not be as dynamic offensively as Bojan Bogdanovic, but he’s a vastly superior defender. He posted a 0.7 DBPM last season, where Bogey posted a -0.9 mark. Meanwhile, Royce O’Neale was better than Mikal Bridges by that metric last season (2.0 to 0.9) but the point stands: the Phoenix Suns started two good defensive wings, and the Utah Jazz started one. Rudy Gobert just rendered that point entirely moot.
Once again, Chris Paul is better than Mike Conley, and once again, it doesn’t matter. For all of Paul’s fundamental soundness and veteran savvy on the defensive end, he can’t make up for the discrepancy between these two teams in rim protection.
It’s not an entirely complicated formula. Start the best rim protector in basketball, and you’re likely to have an elite defense. Look for the Utah Jazz to boast a superior one to the Phoenix Suns again in the 2021-22 season.
Verdict: Utah Jazz
Utah Jazz vs Phoenix Suns: Depth
Of all three points of comparison we’ve drawn in this article, this one was the easiest to draw a conclusion on.
The Utah Jazz rostered both the Sixth Man of the Year in Jordan Clarkson and the runner-up for the same award in Joe Ingles. Generally speaking, any team that boasts the NBA’s two best reserves is likely to have a case as the deepest team in the league.
The Suns’ best reserve last season was probably Cameron Payne, who quietly had an excellent season. He scored 16.8 points and dished out 7.2 assists per 36 minutes, resulting in a fine 1.3 Value Over Replacement Player (VORP). Some may argue that Dario Saric was even better, but his 0.0 VORP suggests otherwise.
Nonetheless, Joe Ingles’ robust 2.5 VORP tops all reserves in this matchup, and it isn’t even close. Jordan Clarkson’s 1.4. narrowly edges Payne’s 1.3 as well, the highest mark from a Phoenix Suns reserve. Beyond the top reserves, the Jazz’s offseason additions of Rudy Gay, Eric Paschall and Hassan Whiteside project as better than Suns end-of-rotation players like Frank Kaminsky and Cameron Johnson.
The Utah Jazz were the deepest team in the NBA last season, and figure to be again in 2021-22. The Phoenix Suns never stood a chance in this comparison.
Verdict: Utah Jazz
The Phoenix Suns made a surprise Finals appearance last season. Far be it from us to call it a fluke. However, in a head-to-head comparison in offense, defense and depth, the Utah Jazz appear to be the superior team. They’ll hope for better health in order to block the Suns’ path to a repeat Finals appearance in 2021-22.