Moneyball: The Utah Jazz are built for something like this to happen
How Dennis Lindsey crafted the Utah Jazz to sustain the loss of Gordon Hayward
Around the turn of the 21st century, the phrase “moneyball” became invariably popular in sports. A system of contract and roster control and manipulation pioneered and popularised by MLB’s 2002 Oakland Athletics, and given a name by Michael Lewis, who wrote a book on the team, every team in every sport either thought they were, or wanted to be, playing “moneyball”.
The ambiguous and enigmatic sports buzzword again reared its head around the start of this decade upon the release of the film adaptation of the book. Brad Pitt, playing Oakland General Manager Billy Beane, romanticized the word, and made playing “moneyball” cooler than it ever had been before.
What was “moneyball”, though? Put quite simply, when one refers to moneyball, they refer generally or unknowingly to “sabremetrics”, the empirical analysis of baseball statistics, popularized by Bill James.
However, “moneyball”, or at least what we know to be “moneyball”, is much more than numbers. Moneyball is the art of reading those numbers, using them to answer questions, draw conclusions, and cut through the occasionally misinformative top layer of stats and logic that blind people from correctly or efficiently building a professional sporting team.
Romantically, moneyball was giving yourself an edge that no other team could see. It was sports, but done differently; done the smart way.
17 years after the Athletics’ incredible 2002 season, and 16 after the release of Lewis’ book on the subject (and the coining of the word), the NBA’s Utah Jazz faced a similar problem to that which confronted the As in the 2001 offseason. Star outfielder Johnny Damon was about to leave the club — he was signing with the Boston Red Sox.
Ironically, an almost mirror image confronted Utah — their star player, Gordon Hayward, was set to leave his small team on the west coast and move to a big, historically strong, powerhouse club based in Boston. The similarities are eerie, including what took place afterwards.
Confronted with the challenge of replacing one of the best outfielders in the Major Leagues, and with almost zero of the financial capabilities required to do so, it would take more from the Elephants than just putting a guy in the Oakland Coliseum outfield where Damon once stood. Oakland decided they were going to strip away the name, and all the “inbuilt personal biases” that came with it, and focus solely on replacing the production their former outfield yielded — and doing it via multiple players, not just one.
The road the Jazz has taken has gone a little differently, but nonetheless works along the same principles as that which the Athletics worked off a decade and a half ago. When General Manager Dennis Lindsey won the job in 2012, he made the decision to anticipate something like this happening five years down the road, and prepare for it, rather than react to it.
For the past five years, Lindsey has been crafting his masterpiece, using little more than crayons. If, and when, someone decided to break his canvas, he and his team were going to be prepared.
Every player on this Utah roster is there for a reason. No one is there by accident, or was happened upon, or is burdensome glut on the franchise that the team is seeking a new home for.
Take shooting guard Alec Burks, a 7th-year pro out of Colorado. Despite struggling with injury throughout his career, Burks has managed to be quite productive when he’s seen minutes, with a career average of 10 points per game, .428 field goal percentage and .360 three point percent.
Until last season, in which he only appeared in 42 games for an average of 15.5 minutes per night, Burks had strung together three seasons in a row of 13+ ppg and +400 fg%. For a guy making just $10 million a year, that’s not bad.
Burks is making roughly the same amount of money per year as big man Derrick Favors, another Jazz player whom, until an injury-afflicted campaign last year, was totaling impressive numbers. Before 2016–17, Favors had hit two years running of +16 ppg, +8 rpg and +515 fg%.
Another shooting guard, Rodney Hood, is a similar story. Hood was paid not even $1.5 million last season, and is owed little more than that his year, but last year put up 12.7 ppg on .408 fg% and .371 3p% — and that represented a dip in production.
Last year, centre Rudy Gobert was on one of the best contracts in the League. For his 14 ppg, 12.8 rpg, and league-leading 2.6 blocks per game, the Jazz paid a little over $2 million. Utah repaid ‘The Stifle Tower’ for his hard work and loyalty with a four-year, $102 million contract in the offseason; by the way, Gobert was taken with the 27th overall pick in the 2013 Draft — incredible value.
Even famously erratic and unpredictable swingman Joe Johnson, known as ‘Iso Joe’, for his hero-ball style of play, has managed to fit in with what the Jazz are doing, on a cheap, two year, $22 million contract. Last year, his 9.2 ppg came off an impressively efficient .436 fg% and .411 3p%, almost in contrast to how Johnson has made his name across 18 seasons in the NBA.
Joe Ingles may very well be the definition of what the Jazz do. A career journeyman who had previously played in Spain, Israel, and his native Australia, Ingles was cut by the Los Angeles Clippers (who were in desperate need for a cheap player in his position) after preseason in 2014, and was picked up by the Utah.
Signed on a miniscule, pay-for-play deal, Ingles turned that shot in the NBA into a regular role, and was in 2015 rewarded with a multi-year deal, which he again turned into 7.1 ppg, .452 fg% and a whopping .441 3p%. For last year’s hard work, Ingles earned just a tick over $2 million.
In the offseason, the team rewarded him with a four year, $52 million deal, which Ingles gladly took in the face of larger offers from other clubs. The Australian is almost a personification of his team, championing loyalty, hard work, and economical production.
What does Ingles want to do with his new paycheck? He wants to help underprivileged families in both Utah and his home country; that’s just the kind of guys that make up the Utah Jazz.
Clearly, this Jazz team is built for purpose, not to any mould. Dennis Lindsey foresaw a time when his team’s blue-chip talent, Gordon Hayward, may look to leave for greener pastures; Lindsey and the Jazz we’re never going to be so foolish as to bank their team’s future on the preferences of their best player, like so many in history have.
Lindsey’s team is one of versatility, of hedged bets; they had the financial means, the team and the cap space for more talent to satisfy Hayward going forward. However, if the 27 year old favoured a sea change, the blow would no doubt be felt, but the ship would not be sunk.
Take the Jazz’s addition of former Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Ricky Rubio — a move at the time thought only to be food for thought to keep Hayward in town, but no, that’s not how Utah operate. What Rubio actually represents is a carefully thought-through addition to Lindsey’s team, another well-thought-out swatch on the painting.
“We felt, the year before last, Ricky had the best defensive year of any point guard in the League,” Lindsey told the Salt Lake Tribune, “This year it was around fifth, sixth, seventh. As you know, Quin [Snyder] trains and builds great habits.”
Whilst Rubio does not nearly have the scoring chops Hayward provided (11.1 ppg on .401 fg% vs 21.9 ppg on .471 fg% and .398 3p%), the Spaniard does replace the majority of the “dash-and-dime” ring-attacking playmaking that his predecessor facilitated. Rubio is noted to be a far better passer than Hayward, averaging a career high of 9.1 assists (5th in the NBA) last year as opposed to Hayward’s 3.5; the new Jazz point guard will facilitate better ball movement, and get his teammates, notably centre Rudy Gobert, the higher amount of touches they crave.
Perhaps most importantly, Rubio does all this for only $14 million per year. That is in stark contrast to what it would’ve cost to either re-sign Hayward (~$31 million per year), or sign another of the top-line point guards on the market, such as Jeff Teague (three years, $57 million), Jrue Holiday (five years $126 million), or even the departing George Hill (three years, $57 million).
Of course, Utah will have to find a way to make up the scoring and shooting prowess of their departed swingman. Perhaps Quin Snyder and his coaching team will find a way to share that responsibility between the rest of the team, or perhaps some of the Jazz’s high draft picks, such as Tony Bradley and Donovan Mitchell, will enjoy that duty.
The point is, Utah will find a way; their team operates on “finding a way”, and allows itself to do so through roster and fiscal versatility — principles on which the quiet contender in Salt Lake City was built. The loss of their leader, Gordon Hayward, is no doubt a setback — but unlikely how most teams operate, the Jazz have not allowed such a setback to bring the house down.
Whereas a great many other teams have relied on building almost entirely through the Draft, and living with the feast or famine such a plan brings about, the Utah Jazz have thought longer and harder than that. They won’t be living or dying by their sword — when stabbed, their sword allows them to stab back, and stab back they will.
