Rudy Gay has slid seamlessly into this lineup and elevated it. This lineup has dominated the opposition’s second units.
He has built his rotation so that there are a significant number of minutes each game in which Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert join Jordan Clarkson, Joe Ingles, and another bench player. Quin Snyder has found over the last few years that he can punish opposing benches by staggering his starting lineup with his second unit. He’s slotted right into the role left by Georges Niang, and he’s played it perfectly so far. That will likely be how he spends most of his time. So far, he hasn’t had to venture far from the role of bench scorer. When the Jazz signed Rudy Gay, a lot of the talk around the move was about his versatility, and how the Jazz can utilize him in different ways. His willingness to shoot without hesitation in all of these situations gives him gravity, and that opens up the court for his teammates. He lets it fly both off the dribble and off a jab step. He is unafraid to shoot when he’s a few feet beyond the arc. With his length and height, he can shoot over contests easily. He isn’t worried about a hand in his face. Gay has been using that green light so far to shoot threes of all kinds.
The Jazz have a wide variety of players when it comes to their willingness to shoot, but Quin Snyder has preached to each one of them that they have a green light. Gay is an incredibly willing and eager shooter. He is shooting 11.9 three-point attempts per 100 possessions, third-most among rotation players on the team behind only Jordan Clarkson and Donovan Mitchell. This helps provide the necessary spacing for Quin Snyder’s offense. The Utah Jazz over the last few seasons have loved to employ shooters at the power forward position. He’s taking fewer possessions as a creator, and more as a finisher. He’s also averaging his most three-point attempts per game since his second season in the league. So far this season, Gay has a career-low Usage percentage of 19.9%. He’s had to evolve into a valuable role player. As the years have gone by, he has had to do what many aging stars have done. He created a lot of his shots for himself. Early in his career, he lived in the midrange. His scoring takes a different role now though. Rudy Gay came into this league as a scorer, and in his 16th season, that’s still his primary role. So for now, let’s pay attention to trends while keeping in mind that much of this could, and likely will, change. For a true analysis of his stats, we’ll need a bigger sample size. I can almost guarantee that Gay won’t continue to make over 50% of his threes all season long. We shouldn’t expect all of this to continue indefinitely. Now, for a mandatory disclaimer, this is a very small sample size. His 69.9% true shooting would rank third in the NBA if he’d played enough minutes to qualify. In short, he’s been one of the most efficient scorers in basketball over his first two weeks of playing for the Jazz. He’s done all of this in under 19 minutes per game. His shooting has been prolific, especially from three, where he’s hitting 53% on 4.6 attempts per game. In those seven games, he’s put up 10.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. Rudy Gay has played seven games for the Utah Jazz.