SALT LAKE CITY — Every NBA team that will be in Orlando for the season restart is facing an incredibly unique situation and there’s no blueprint to follow.
There’s no one to lean on for advice on how teams should proceed after not having played basketball for more than four months. There’s no research or previous examples on how unexpected isolation and lack of competitive basketball during a global pandemic can impact team dynamic.
“We have to be nimble in our ability to make adjustments, make them quickly.” — Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder
The Utah Jazz, and the rest of the NBA, are truly walking into uncharted territory. In Quin Snyder’s estimation, the best thing to do is over plan, which seems very on brand for the coach who has become known for his methodical tactics.
“There are so many variables,” Snyder said on Sunday. “That doesn’t mean you’re not thinking about them. You’re not going into it blind saying, ‘oh wow I wonder what’s going to happen.’ It almost requires you to plan even more because it can be a little bit of a maze, and you try to figure out if you make a left turn how quickly can you go back and make a right turn if you run into a dead end.”
The variables are seemingly unending. Teams have yet to practice in groups or play five-on-five basketball. They’ll begin that once they’re in Orlando, followed by three exhibition games, then things really turn up on July 30 when the games matter.
There will be players who are well-conditioned and ready to go right out of the gate, there will be some that need time to get into game-playing shape. But, even once the games begin, will the chemistry that teams had when the league shut down on March 11 still be there?
The long hiatus could have an impact on when teams turn to their veteran players. This situation could call for tempered expectations across the board and the need to be hyper flexible in schemes and game plans.
“The word that comes to mind for me lately is ‘nimble,’” Snyder said. “We have to be nimble in our ability to make adjustments, make them quickly. We may discover things about our team the first scrimmage. At the same time, being focused on our health. I don’t think that means you don’t play people or you don’t compete in games but it’s something that we’re aware of and we monitor, and again, be nimble.”
The Jazz are already preparing for what their game will look like without Bojan Bogdanovic, but there’s only so much planning they can do before they get on the court.
“We had started to fall into some consistency after trading for Jordan [Clarkson] where we had Mike [Conley] getting healthy, we were having a rhythm there with our rotations and our bench,” Snyder said. “Not having him obviously changes that.”
Bogdanovic, who is out for the rest of the season following wrist surgery in May, was a really big part of the Jazz’s offense but also added size and athleticism at a position where the Jazz don’t have immense depth.
“It impacts us in a number of ways. I think he’s our second-leading scorer and any time you lose a player of that caliber, particularly at that position, he’s 6-8, so size becomes a factor,” Snyder said. “So how can we defend? That’s still our identity. We may look a little bit different defensively, and then how can we score, he’s one of the top shooters in the league, he can score in the post, he can score in a variety of ways.”
In addition to missing Bogdanovic, there is a very real possibility that the Jazz will have to play a couple of games, if not more, without Conley, whose wife is due to give birth to their third child on Aug. 27. While Snyder and the Jazz are completely supportive of Conley leaving the NBA bubble for such an important reason, it does add another variable to their basketball situation.
Even with all of the planning and trying to predict what variables might force the Jazz to adjust, Snyder is acutely aware that until the Jazz are able to get on a basketball court and practice and compete, there isn’t a real way to know where they are in terms of being ready.
With that in mind, the schedule in Orlando becomes incredibly important. The three exhibition games, which are part of a truncated ‘training camp,’ are going to serve as a real measuring stick for teams.
“I don’t really see it as a typical training camp, I see it differently than that,” Snyder said. “We have to compete and we have to play so we can see some of those things and make some of those adjustments.”
During a normal NBA preseason, stars often play very limited minutes or sometimes not at all. The Jazz won’t have the luxury of letting everyone take time off, there’s been too much of that. They have to see how things have changed or evolved over the last few months and what needs to change and evolve quickly before games really start to matter.
Of course, there’s going to be a real balancing act that Snyder and his staff will have to learn and master on the fly. Injury risk is something that many players are worried about and for players with a lot of miles on their sneakers, it could mean that they are brought along with a little more care.
“The best thing we can do is prepare and be aware,” Snyder said. “We’ll adjust what we do in practice and we’ll also adjust what we do in the games. Some of that will vary depending on the score, some of it will depend on if it’s a back-to-back. There’s always variables you have to consider. We have some young guys that have worked real hard, they’ve gotten better through the course of the season, and opportunity is the mother of invention.”
Despite the countless hours Snyder and his staff have spent planning and re-planning and over planning, and planning some more it could all come down to which team is able to fall back into what they had before the NBA shutdown.
Snyder is confident that his group will be able to do that. But again, until they actually get on a basketball court, nothing is certain.