Utah Jazz: Derrick Favors might be the key to success

The Utah Jazz are not receiving a ton of votes to come out of the West. Derrick Favors may hold the key to taking them to the next level.

Derrick Favors has been with the Utah Jazz all but 58 games of his career, making him the longest-tenured Jazz player among current players. He also ranks 10th all-time in terms of tenure for any player that has played for the storied franchise.

While it’s an interesting statistic, there’s a big difference between a player having a long tenure with a team (i.e. Nick Collison) and having a lasting impact (i.e. Dwyane Wade). The Jazz are hoping for more of the latter as Favors will be entering his ninth season in the league.

Despite already being 27 years old, Favors still has room to grow. The big man shot a mere 22.2 percent from deep this past season, but shot 30.0 percent during the 2016-17 regular season. Now, 30 percent from deep isn’t anything to write home about in terms of the general landscape in the NBA, and it’s worth noting he was only taking 0.2 attempts per game that season.

Chances are, if you play the power forward or center position, your team/coach is expecting you to have expanded range. While the league has progressed towards an emphasis on the long ball, the Jazz are doubling down on a more “traditional” offense…. kind of.

Andrew Bailey of SLC Dunk broke down Favors’ game last month, and there were a few interesting statistics the Jazz can use moving forward:

"“Derrick Favors played 1,230 minutes with no other centers on the floor this season. In those minutes, he averaged 17.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and one steal per 36 minutes, while shooting 59.4 percent from the field.”"

Put into simpler terms, if you extrapolated the minutes when Derrick Favors was deployed as a small-ball center, he was averaging a line that only three other players cleared in the NBA last season: Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic and Karl-Anthony Towns. Not bad for a player that starts games off as a power forward.

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Another point the article makes is that Favors’ positional versatility allows the Jazz to play small with other stretch-4s on the roster like Thabo Sefolosha and Jae Crowder. It may behoove the Jazz to play into today’s NBA.

With that being said, when Quin Snyder trotted out the more traditional lineup of Donovan Mitchell, Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles, Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, the Jazz’s offensive rebounding percentage increased by a staggering 32.0 percent. The lineup only logged a shade under 82 minutes, but it’s just one example that what the Jazz have is more than good enough.

In the playoffs, their normal starting five was their best lineup, posting a +26.5 net rating. Snyder did experiment with swapping out Ingles for Crowder, but there was only one lineup out of the three listed on Basketball-Reference that has a positive net rating.

The most interesting stat Bailey brought to light was this one:

"“Among players who made at least 200 shots in the range of zero to three feet from the rim, Derrick Favors’ field goal percentage (73.5) in that range trailed only LeBron James’ (75.2). He was ninth in that stat in 2015-16 and third in 2014-15.”"

Think about that. Out of all the star power this league has, Derrick Favors was only second to the King in field goal percentage within a few feet of the rim. That’s better than players like DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic and others.

Now none of this is to say that if Derrick Favors starts shooting in the neighborhood of 35 percent from beyond the arc it’s a bad thing. Spacing certainly doesn’t hurt a team’s offense, but it can hurt its rebounding numbers – something that Favors does quite a good job of:

"“Among players with at least 400 rebounds in 2017-18, Derrick Favors’ Contested Rebound Percentage of 50 ranked second.”"

Favors holds a career average of 7.2 rebounds per game. With the exception of the 2016-17 season, Favors has cleared over 100 offensive rebounds over the past five years, including more than 190 in three of them.

Favors also holds a career 21.0 defensive rebounding percentage, which is impressive considering his frontcourt mate is Rudy Gobert, who holds a 27.8 defensive rebounding percentage for his career.

General manager Dennis Lindsey re-signed Favors to a two-year, $36 million extension that could end up being just a one-year deal since the front office holds a team option for next season. Whether or not the Jazz exercise it remains to be seen, but Favors is starting to look like he’s worth every penny.