Perhaps it was Joe Engels who put all this together. In early February, the experienced forward was traded to the Utah Jazz, and the team has not been the same since. They won, yes – it was a major issue for regular season jazz in the Queen Snyder era, as they have not finished anything bad from fifth to fifth at the Western Conference in the last five seasons. Although there has been an unequivocal difference in the success period since Engels left; The season ended with the Jazz winning by close to 50, but rarely did the win seem so intense, and like a role like a roster explosion.
It wasn’t much clearer when Snyder turned it into one of the exclusive “extra protests” of the modern NBA. During his pregame availability, before the Memphis Grizzlies (a victory that would be the title, in any other context) win, Snyder star players competed in a growing narrative about the lack of love between Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. In a so-called 19-minute speech, Snyder cuts off the seemingly wide armada of his hand gestures to show how often Mitchell looks at Gobert – in a pick-and-roll, post, or really any other trend, trying to break the relevance of statistics and even time in the league. Not the kind of infamous playmaker, who Mitchell helps his guards more than he helps Gobert.
Needless to say, Snyder is probably not too concerned about the ethics of statistical journalism in the NBA media. His professional concerns are more internal than PR-centric, and where there is 19 minutes of corrective media-facing smoke, there must be a fire that emanates from it, within the walls of the locker room. If Jazz is able to take Snyder’s instructions and aggressively reverse what he thinks about them through deep, inspired, integrated play-off runs, then maybe the fire will be extinguished. Otherwise, it appears that as the team prepares for the post-season, several of them are preparing to say goodbye to each other.
Gobert, of course, needs to be fed to have any effect on crime. As an aggressive big man he is more classical than the teenagers – his value comes from the ball and near the rim. If he had to be placed on the floor even once, the dazzling height of his dribble could almost immediately lead to turnover. Gobert doesn’t even shoot with range. We are not talking about Nikola Jokic or Joel Embed or even Nikola Vusevic. Whatever he thinks of himself, Gobert’s skill with the ball is not close to what it is without and is limited to moments of quick injury. That’s always true, and he’s taken almost the same amount of shots this season as he has in his entire career, with Snyder and Mitchell running a crime that prioritizes actions that end in a clean look from outside the arc.
It’s hard to argue that it didn’t work: the Jazz League has the highest offensive rating since finishing fourth last season. However, their defense has dropped from third to 11th, and here is the rubbish that has taken Utah from swinging harmony to the blues of Chukar. After the recent loss, Gobert said the jazz “will never win [their] Hands are dirty, ”he laments, lamenting that his teammates often hacked him out on the defensive, leaving him as the only wrongdoer in the backline. Mitchell, who came into the league as an exciting defensive prospect but has since focused too much on his breathless decline and pull-up play, is a top offender. So did Mike Conley, Jr. and Jordan Clarkson.
Royce O’Neill provides relief, but otherwise Gobert’s allegations are valid. Without ingles, they are smaller, less communicative and less able to keep their beef indoors. It doesn’t help when Bojan Bogdanovich is out of action, either: in the absence of Bogdanovich, the Jazz lost five out of five games, they won three of four games when they returned. An English-like injection of size, shooting and amicability, a vibe stop-gap may not be enough for the Croatian jazz to stop the Mitchell-Gobert divorce.
Mitchell is one of the best in the sport that he commits crimes, and he doesn’t want to hear that his middle-aged offender is often so loud, especially in public. Gobert is the greatest one-man defense we’ve seen in a while, and Mitchell & Co.’s tire rim protection department is constantly abusing his vastness by placing extra paperwork on his desk, though not giving him any extra shine. The other end of the court. The division of labor has worked quite well on paper, but the number of people is growing, and Salt Lake City’s basketball ecosystem still seems to be crumbling despite working at a very high level. Let it be a lesson in an industry where pure performance is often not enough.
