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Floating around the 0.500 mark at the beginning of the year, the Jazz's surge in the second half saw them through.
Eventually, Utah had one of their better regular season campaigns in recent times as they wrapped up with an impressive 50-32 win-loss record, their best since 2016-17. Donovan Mitchell evolved as a superstar, and the team provided respectable resistance to the mighty Rockets in the first round of the postseason before crashing out 4-1. One of the positives included a healthy and productive outing from Rudy Gobert, who averaged a career-high 15.9 points per game along with another career-best 12.8 boards as well.
This was the franchise's third straight year reaching the playoffs as the 5th best team in the West. Safe to say, the franchise had a turbulent 82 games to endure, which comprised of various highs and lows distributed throughout the year.
While some players held true to the expectations that were set against them, many failed to step up as their team would've wanted. Let's talk about the three most disappointing performers from the Jazz in this past regular season.
#1 Ricky Rubio
After the Conley-to-Utah trade didn't happen during the mid-season trade shuffle, Ricky Rubio was certain he'd live to see another postseason in a Jazz uniform.
Collectively speaking, Rubio's 12.7 points, 6.1 assists per game on 40% shooting from the floor are decent numbers. But come to think of it, the Jazz are on the brink of being a strong playoff team, and they desperately need an upgrade at the point guard position.
The Spaniard is well aware of the fact that he could've contributed way more in the 68 games he played for his team this year. He often appeared as an offensive liability who would serve better if used as a playmaker coming off the bench rather than leading the charge from the front.
Clearly, Rubio failed miserably in carrying the team when Mitchell had bad games and that shows how vulnerable the team is in looking forward to being a postseason force. Rubio is not providing the wing scoring Utah need at the moment as well.
#2 Joe Ingles
The Australian did a great job of getting under the skin of opponents yet again, but failed to back it up with solid play on the offensive end. In over 31 minutes of playtime per game, Ingles could only manage 12.1 points and 5.7 assists per game on an uncharacteristic 39% shooting from beyond the arc.
“You try and work it out pretty quickly while the series is going on, but obviously I wasn’t really able to work it out quick enough and good enough,” admitted Ingles regarding his struggles in the Rockets series. “It still kind of kills me inside that I wasn’t able to help our team as much as I thought I should have.”
Well, he does have reason to regret. In the five first round games against the Rockets, Joe averaged a miserable 6.4 points per game on 27% conversion from deep. Considering the firepower Houston possess, this was surely not the effort Ingles' teammates expected from him in that period.
According to him,
"The playoff performance is going to stick with me for way too many months now. But I’ll go back and I’ll watch it and I’ll speak with Coach and then figure out the best way to attack it.”
#3 Royce O'Neale
In his second year with the franchise, Royce saw an increased role in the rotation but couldn't increase his scoring numbers in proportion. In over 20 minutes of court-time across the 82 games he played for his team, he averaged just a sliver above 5 points per game and shot an ordinary 76% from the foul-line.
All his numbers barely showed any noticeable rise from the last year. However, the postseason turned out to be a whole different ball game for him, when he led his team in three-point shooting at a clip of 34.8 percent.
O'Neale did show positive signs of being an efficient 3-and-D kind of a player down the stretch in the playoffs, but he is still far removed from his projected ceiling. He needs to put up comprehensive numbers for him to be entrusted with an even larger role if Rubio ends up getting traded in the coming off-season.
Guess the Lakers players!
