What We've Learned About Utah Jazz Coach Quin Snyder so Far in 2014-15
Thanks to his meme-ability, the Internet took to rookie head coach Quin Snyder quickly. And now, we have enough of a sample size to examine his work.
The Utah Jazz have completed over 10 percent of the 2014-15 NBA season, meaning we've seen enough of the new coach to draw some conclusions.
The most encouraging early returns have undoubtedly been on offense, where Snyder's uptempo motion system has allowed the young Jazz roster to flourish. The other end, well, that's another story.
| Offensive Rating | ORtg Rank | Defensive Rating | DRtg Rank | Net Rating | NetRtg Rank | |
| 2013-14 (under Tyrone Corbin) | 100.6 | 25th | 109.1 | 30th | -8.4 | 28th |
| 2014-15 (under Quin Snyder) | 105.2 | 10th | 109.1 | 28th | -3.8 | 22nd |
There's still time for things to turn either way, but there are plenty of indicators to suggest which direction they'll go.
Offense
Following his arrival in Salt Lake City, a mantra of Snyder's quickly permeated fan speak surrounding the team. In a piece for ESPN.com, Salt City Hoops' Andy Larsen shared:
"In is a new philosophy, explained by Snyder as 'playing with a pass, playing with pace, and playing with purpose.' In short, it's a much more modern approach: The Jazz will look to bend the opposition's setup using quick ball movement, push the ball as quickly as possible in order to take advantage of holes in the defense and space the floor with intention. As Jazz GM (and former Spurs exec) Dennis Lindsey explained, 'Any time you get defenses to change body position, usually there’s somewhere inside the defense that there will be a breakdown. Then, the integrity of the lines of the defense can be compromised through penetration, whether it be with a dribble or with a pass.'
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Utah is doing a great job with at least one of those three P's, "playing with a pass." It currently leads the league in passes per game at 379. The second-place Knicks are over 20 behind at 353.3.
The ball movement is often having the desired effect of shifting defenses, leading to plenty of uncontested looks for the Jazz. They're simply not converting those looks at a high enough rate.
Indeed, there is a trait here. Utah is averaging more uncontested field-goal attempts than its opponents but converting at a much lower rate.
In three of the four games in which the Jazz have shot a higher percentage, they've come out on top.
| vs. Houston (L, 104-93) | 31 | 32 | 35.5% | 50% |
| @ Dallas (L, 120-102) | 42 | 31 | 45.2% | 54.8% |
| vs. Phoenix (W, 118-91) | 28 | 31 | 39.3% | 25.8% |
| @ LA Clippers (L, 107-101) | 41 | 47 | 39% | 48.9% |
| vs. Cleveland (W, 102-100) | 39 | 26 | 46.2% | 38.5% |
| vs. Dallas (L, 105-82) | 38 | 40 | 28.9% | 57.5% |
| @ Detroit (W, 97-96) | 28 | 35 | 53.6% | 42.9% |
| @ Indiana (L, 97-86) | 35 | 36 | 45.7% | 41.7% |
| @ Atlanta (L, 100-97) | 41 | 32 | 39% | 62.5% |
| Average | 35.9 | 34.4 | 41.2% | 47.4% |
The ball movement is creating enough good looks to win games, and we can assume that Utah's offense will become even more effective if or when some of these open shots just start falling.
But there have also been a number of possessions in which the passing is excessive and not always with a purpose. It's not uncommon to see seemingly aimless passing eat up an entire 24-second shot clock during Jazz games.
Because they walked the ball up the floor and took too long to get into sets, Utah was notorious for late-clock shots last season. it's not doing any better in 2014-15, but the way it's getting there is through the over-passing.
According to 82games.com, the Jazz used 17 percent of their possessions after the 21st tick of the 24-second clock in 2013-14. Through nine games this season, they're again at 17 percent.
Snyder likely wants more decisive passing that leads to more moments like this.
As the players adapt to the motion offense, which relies heavily on chemistry, reads and improvisation, "playing with a pass" and "playing with purpose" will start to mesh.
The same can be said of pace. Snyder brought with him an optimism toward playing a more up-and-down game, but so far, it hasn't happened.
Last season, the Jazz were 26th in the league in pace, averaging 93.6 possessions per 48 minutes. It was almost as if Tyrone Corbin was aiming for a style similar to the Memphis Grizzlies' "Grit-n-Grind."
Even with players quickly advancing the ball with the pass under Snyder, Utah's pace is 93.2, good for 27th in the NBA.
Again, it's a product of the sometimes ineffectual passing, which should work itself out as players become better acquainted with the offense and with each other.
Defense
Utah had the worst defense in the league during Corbin's final season running the show, and it doesn't look much better under Snyder. In fact, if you recall the table above, the defensive rating is the exact same.
Jody Genessy of The Deseret News shared Snyder's thoughts on how the defensive struggles are directly tied to some of the problems on offense:
As the players cut down on those turnovers and start making smarter plays on the offensive end, they'll be able to set up their half-court defense more often.
They'll have to clean some things up there, though, beginning with the starting backcourt of Trey Burke and Alec Burks. Both are routinely caught out of position, and Burke is often beat off the dribble. That puts a ton of pressure on bigs like Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter to clean up after them.
The results can be seen in Burke and Burks' defensive ratings. Of the nine players who've appeared in every game this season, their ratings of 111.9 and 111.3 are the two worst.
As the first line of defense, they have to be better if Utah is going to have any chance of living up to what Snyder wants on that end. According to The Salt Lake Tribune's Tony Jones, the coach said:
"It’s something we absolutely have to do if we want have any success. We have to defend everywhere on the floor and we have to finish possessions. If we don’t do those things, our chances of winning games go way down.
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As far as schemes go, Snyder isn't asking his guys to do anything terribly complicated. So it's up to the players to focus on that end. The effort needs to be there on every possession, and the rotations have to become second nature.
Relationships with Players
Perhaps the most encouraging sign in this first phase of Snyder's head coaching career is that he seems keenly interested in connecting with his players.
He left that impression as an assistant with the Atlanta Hawks in 2013-14. According to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Paul Millsap said:
"I learned a lot from Q over this past year. He’s very intelligent. Sitting and having a conversation, he’d make you think. A lot of stuff he’d say, I wouldn’t get until later on that day. That is how smart he is.
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Kyle Korver was also impressed:
"I’m really happy for him. He is a great guy. He is a really interesting basketball mind. I really enjoyed working with him last year. He really taught me a lot and showed me a lot. After you spend a certain amount of time in anything you tend to get pigeon-holed in thinking. Quin brought a whole new way of basketball thought for me. I felt I got better last year and a lot of that was because of him.
"
Now in Utah, and with the full plate of a head coach, Snyder is still taking the time to develop relationships with individual players.
And he's already shown that he trusts them in big moments.
Gordon Hayward came through with that game-winner against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Burke's shot selection has basically become a nightly trust exercise, but where Snyder should probably have a longer leash is in the foul-trouble department.
Snyder's philosophy is to send players to the bench when they get their second first-half foul. It's come back to bite him twice. First, it was Derrick Favors. Most recently, it was Hayward in a game against the Hawks.
Utah was up 46-37 with 6:38 left in the second quarter when Dante Exum came in for Hayward after his second foul. By halftime, the Hawks led 57-54.
There aren't many coaches who would consider two fouls in the second quarter to be trouble, but that's beside the point. Snyder has shown a lot of trust in his players in terms of taking shots, making plays and overcoming mistakes. Trusting they can play without fouling may be the next step.
That's a little gripe, and of course, it's early still. For the most part, things have gone very well, and Utah looks significantly better. In 2013, the third win didn't come until November 30. The Jazz got there three weeks earlier in 2014.
The body language is almost universally better. Hayward and Favors look more comfortable. And as the rest of the roster grows into Snyder's scheme, things are bound to get even better. Maybe even good enough to avoid another one of these:
@CJZero
Unless otherwise noted, all stats and salary figures are courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball-Reference.com, and are current as of Nov. 13, 2014.
Andy Bailey covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him @AndrewDBailey.
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