3. Utah finishes top 10 in per-game scoring
While the loss of Ricky Rubio and Derrick Favors hurts a bit defensively, the Utah Jazz’s acquisitions of Mike Conley and Bojan Bogdanovic provide major upgrades offensively. Conley averaged 21.1 points per game last year and is a career 37.5 percent shooter from deep, a huge improvement over Rubio, who shot 31.1 percent from range last season.
Likewise, Bogdanovic shot 42.5 percent from range last season and is a willing shooter, which compared to the 21.8 percent on one attempt per game from Favors, will provide the team with a massive boost in spacing.
Add in the already efficient Joe Ingles, a career 40.8 percent sniper from distance, and Donovan Mitchell, a highly capable scorer who shot a respectable 36.2 percent on 6.7 attempts per game last season, and the Jazz are in position to have excellent shooting 1 through 4 in their starting lineup.
Given their new weapons, expect the Jazz to attempt more shots from outside the arc and look for those shots to be open more often than not.
The new and improved spacing in this Jazz starting lineup will likely pay dividends in terms of open looks. Between Conley and Mitchell, the Jazz have two guards that are great at getting inside, forcing the defense to choose between collapsing or giving up wide open looks to Ingles and Bogdanovic.
If the defense does collapse, the synergy between Conley and Gobert already looks solid, as the Stifle Tower caught several lobs for easy buckets against New Orleans this past Friday.