One goal for each Utah Jazz starter post All-Star break

Utah Jazz guard Mike Conley: Facilitate more

Nobody could accuse veteran point guard Mike Conley of being selfish. In fact, that’s probably not an accusation he’s dealt with in his entire career.

His modest 5.3 assists per game are a function of this Utah Jazz offense. Quin Snyder’s attack features a minimalist approach to ball movement. Evidently, it works: this team has the NBA’s best offensive rating (117.3) in spite of ranking 27th in assists per game (22.3).

Furthermore, Conley’s Assist-to-Usage ratio of 1.16 lands him in the 60th percentile in the league (per CleaningtheGlass). We can safely assume that if he had the ball more, he’d already be meeting this goal.

He should try to do it anyway.

We’re not asking anything radical of Conley. If he could bump that Assist-to-Usage ratio closer to the 70th percentile, it might make this Utah Jazz attack a little less predictable. They wouldn’t be the first three-point heavy offense to peter out in the postseason. An added wrinkle or two could pay dividends when it matters.

Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell: Improve three-point percentage

Donovan Mitchell’s relatively weak 35.1% accuracy from downtown is also a function of usage. Mitchell attempts a whopping 9.5 threes per contest. Many of those shots are closely contested, and this Utah Jazz offense is dependent on him taking them regardless.

In other words, this might be a fruitless request. It’s akin to asking the sun to shine harder: it would if it could.

Well, likewise, we’d set a more realistic goal for Mitchell if we could identify one. The other candidate here was “stay healthy”, which is even further out of his control.

Realistically, all Spida has to do is keep up the good work. Still, if he could find a way to increase his accuracy from distance, it wouldn’t hurt.

If all of these goals were met, it would go a long way towards helping the Utah Jazz meet their ultimate goal: bringing an NBA championship to Salt Lake City.