The DeAnd'Rankings: Season 2, Volume V

Welcome back. Glad to have you. If this is your first time, we here at the DeAnd'Rankings are in the business of ranking the NBA's four players named DeAndre (or some variation thereof) on a maybe-kinda weekly basis. Is it silly? Yes. Is it useful? Not really, no. Is it making a difference? Also probably not. But does it give the Committee a reason to ramble on about basketball so that Mrs. Committee doesn't have to be the recipient? Hell yes. So let's dig into this week's opening thoughts.

While part of the world is still metaphorically burning, none of it is blazing quite like the Utah Jazz. They don't have any DeAndres, which certainly gives them a disadvantage in the eyes of the Committee, but even so, this team is on an absolute heater. 

In this season of COVID absences, compressed schedules, increased DNP-Injury Management/rest, and goofy travel restrictions, it seems like every good team is just trying to find their way through. The Jazz are no different in that mindset, seeing as they've missed Mike Conley (arguably their best player through the first 20 games) and Joe Ingles for 4 games each, and Donovan Mitchell for a couple as well. Where the Jazz differ from opponents is the W column. They're 22-5 as of Monday morning.

The Utah Jazz have only lost once since the day a bunch of white supremacist nazis reminded us all of the horrifying reality that white supremacist nazis can basically do whatever they want in modern-day USA and face almost no consequences. I know that's a sucky thing to pop into the middle of a fun monologue about basketball, but it's important to be continually reminded so that we can continue to be pissed off about it. Anyway, here's what the Jazz have done since then:

They won 11 straight games, 10 by double digits, including road wins over Milwaukee and Denver. They held the crazy Hawks offense to 92 points. They limited the Pistons and Cavs (who are both obviously bad) to 86 and 87 points in back to back games. They scored 120+ four times. They had their streak broken by a Nuggets team that shot 16-28 on 3-pointers (and somehow the Jazz only lost by 11).

Once the streak was snapped, the Jazz have come out and won another 7 in a row. On back to back nights, the Jazz beat the Bucks and Heat by 14 and 18 points, and this was just 3 days after beating the Celtics by 14. 

It's insane. And again, they've been playing this past week without Mike Conley, aka their starting point guard who is averaging 16.5 points and 6 assists while shooting 41% from deep. 

So what's the concern?

The only problem is the 2014-15 Atlanta Hawks vibe that Utah is giving off. Remember when the entire Hawks team won player of the month in 2015? And then the playoffs came and they battled through a 4-2 win in each of the first two rounds before getting absolutely destroyed by Cleveland? The Cavs won by 8, 12, 3, and 30 in a sweep where Atlanta never seemed to present an actual threat. That's the fear with this Utah Jazz team, but with two glaring differences.

Difference #1: Rudy Gobert. The Hawks ended that season with the league's 6th best defensive rating. Al Horford and Paul Millsap were no joke as defenders, but neither of them is anywhere near the rim protector that Rudy Gobert is. Gobert allows the Jazz to do basically whatever they want on the perimeter because he's there to patrol the rim area and cover their mistakes. It's an incredible luxury.

Difference #2: Bucket-getters. Atlanta had one of the 5 best shooters in league history (Kyle Korver), a crafty point guard (Jeff Teague), and a lot of really solid all-around players. But when they needed a crunch-time bucket, who among those guys could create their own shot? The Jazz have that in spades. Donovan Mitchell is a scoring machine when he needs to be. Mike Conley is still a well-above-average pick and roll player. Jordan Clarkson plays at roughly 150mph at all times. Even getting Bojan Bogdanovic on a smaller player for a post-up is a pretty high percentage play. 

These guys are good.

In fact, the counter-argument to that Hawks comparison is that the Jazz feel a lot like last season's Miami bubble team. There's one lead dog (Butler/Donovan), one tremendous big man who plays great defense (Rudy/Bam), an undersized power forward who can shoot the lights out (Crowder/Bogdanovic, and maybe even Royce O'Neal), a bench guard who is an incredible scorer (Dragic/Clarkson), and a few other odds and ends. Except that Utah's odds and ends (Conley, Ingles, and Derrick Favors) are really good players. 

I like this team a lot.

Let's talk rankings.

THE DEAND'RANKINGS: SEASON 2, VOLUME V

4. De'Andre Hunter

It stinks, but Hunter is injured. Not much else to say at this point.

3. DeAndre' Bembry

It's still fun just to see Bembry getting off the bench, and he's really contributing for this Toronto Raptors team that has threatened to turn the corner (by shyly peeking around the corner and definitely not turning). He's getting 20+ minutes a night and doing a little bit of everything, he's just not doing a lot of anything.

2. DeAndre Jordan

DJ is still out here holding his own for the league's most agonizing team. 12 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocked shots on a team where your job is to literally block shots, grab rebounds, and dunk? That is a masterful performance. However, the previous game was 9 points, 8 boards, 5 turnovers. So DJ can't reach #1 status with those kinds of numbers. Especially as the Nets somehow manage to lose games.

1. Deandre Ayton

It's looking like Ayton's perch for the long-haul here, but he's not playing great either. He played fewer than 27 minutes in a close win over Philly this week, only registering 11 points and 6 rebounds. It's not terribly inspiring. On the other hand, he's still putting up slightly better numbers than DJ and the Suns have won 9 out of 10. So there you go. Ayton wears the crown for one more week.

2020-2021 SEASON STANDINGS

4. DeAndre' Bembry - 7 points
3. De'Andre Hunter - 11 points
2. DeAndre Jordan - 13 points
1. Deandre Ayton - 18 points