Quin Snyder stops the music

The person who would know best signals the end of the Jazz.

Jun 8

Good morning. Free Brittney Griner. Let’s basketball.

The Orchestra of the Opera, Edgar Degas, 1870

It’s difficult to produce evidence that coaches matter in terms of wins and losses at the NBA level, and it’s hard to statistically prove which coaches are good and bad. But logic indicates that even without a strong analytic theory in place, coaches matter some and there are clearly some better or worse coaches in the mix any given year. (More good than bad these days, I’d wager.)

By most indications, despite his team’s inability to advance very far in the playoffs, Quin Snyder is a good coach who has positively impacted the Jazz since taking over for Ty Corbin in 2014. He arrived in Utah in Rudy Gobert’s second season and it took two years for him and his front office, led then by Dennis Lindsey, to get a competitive roster together around Gordon Hayward. Then Hayward left, Donovan Mitchell arrived and Utah took its throne as a top regular season and highly disappointing postseason team.

For the last couple of years, the broader basketball world has been wondering if it’s time to separate Gobert and Mitchell, who don’t seem particularly chummy. Gobert is a genius defender but expensive, prone to passive-aggressively critiquing his teammates and a liability against some match-ups in the playoffs. Mitchell is a volume scorer but a low-end star, something Utah is constantly starved for on account of the franchise’s inability to pull stars in free agency. So the narrative has been that to keep Mitchell’s eyes from wandering, the Jazz should trade Gobert for someone who helps them take the next step.

Utah partisans have largely resisted this narrative, none more than Utah’s front office. And yet, the person who would know best how this is going and what’s likely to happen next — the head coach, the person who sees everything in every huddle, every practice, every team flight — decided he’s out. After rejecting extension offers, Snyder this week resigned from the Jazz with one guaranteed year and one option year left on his contract. He said the team needs a new voice and he needs something new. The Jazz say they “desperately wanted” to keep him. Sources tell Woj Mitchell is “unsettled, unnerved and wondering what it means for the franchise's future.”

There are still some unknowns here:

We don’t know if Snyder has something else lined up. Notably, he didn’t resign in time to become a candidate for the Lakers job. He was not clear that he plans not to coach next season. (There’s only one opening other than the Jazz job now: the Hornets, but it seems Kenny Atkinson and Mike D’Antoni are the finalists there.) There has been speculation that Snyder could take over for Gregg Popovich once the legend retires, potentially soon.
We don’t know how much the Jazz were offering Snyder. Even if the franchise “desperately wanted” him to stay, we don’t know how that translates into cold, hard cash.
We don’t know what internal politics played a role in Snyder’s exit. Remember: Lindsey, the GM that brought Snyder in, has moved to an advisory role in the organization. Danny Ainge came in to run the show. Justin Zanik, Lindsey’s longtime deputy, got elevated but is still under Ainge, who leaves a big footprint wherever he goes. There’s a relatively new franchisee in Ryan Smith in place, and Dwyane Wade is hanging around as an investor. Just a whole lot of cooks in what used to be a much more simple kitchen.

Here’s what we do know: if Snyder thought the Jazz had a chance to win the championship in the next two years either as currently constructed or with some tweaks he considered plausible for the current front office, he would have stayed. Snyder is hypercompetitive and proud, and while none of us really know him, seems highly unlikely to walk away from a legitimate title shot. So the fact that he’s walking way now, leaving money on the table, speaks to some real doubts he has about what the voices of the Jazz — Smith, Aingle, the players, Snyder himself — have been saying about this team’s upside.

We think we know something about the Jazz, those of us skeptical (newly or otherwise) of the team’s chances of making a deep playoff run with a Mitchell-Gobert battery and Tier 3 or lower players around them. A logical reading of l’affair Snyder indicates that Snyder himself thinks he knows the same thing: this team is some kind of doomed.

For the sake of the Utah fandom and small markets everywhere, I hope Mitchell does not agitate for a change. I suspect the franchise will make an effort to hire a coach especially amenable to Mitchell. (Johnnie Bryant seems to be that rumored candidate of choice.) As a basketball fan it would be interesting to see Gobert in a different context, and the trade market could use a very tall Frenchman to spice it up a little.

Or maybe Snyder’s just being fully honest, and is leaving his well-paid job out of concern for the Jazz reaching their potential. Maybe just Snyder exiting — and showing his doubt in the project — plus a new voice is all the jolt the Jazz need to rewrite the future. I’m skeptical, but we’ll see.

WNBA Scores

Lynx 69, Liberty 88 — Eager to hear from others who have been watching closely, but it would appear that bringing in Crystal Dangerfield to run point has unlocked Sabrina Ionescu over the past week or so. She’s coming.

Dream 60, Storm 72

Schedule

All times Eastern.

Warriors at Celtics, 9 PM, ABC (Series tied 1-1)

Fever at Sun, 7
Sky at Mystics, 8, CBS Sports Network

Links

The Sparks fired Derek Fisher from both of his jobs (head coach and general manager). I don’t wish ill on anyone, but I wish better for Sparks fans. I can’t believe he kept his jobs after driving Candace Parker away and failing to the make the playoffs last year. No team in L.A. should ever miss the playoffs in a 12-league team where eight squads make the postseason.

Really good Zach Lowe piece on ESPN Insider on the mechanics of the original Andrew Wiggins trade and what it spells for the Warriors’ future team-building escapades. ($)