Quin Snyder is the Smartest Man in Utah

Over the weekend, Quin Snyder casually stepped down as the Utah Jazz head coach. He has the second-most wins in franchise history. He’s made the playoffs 6 straight seasons. All while standing on the sidelines looking like he’s one shot of Jack Daniels away from rock bottom.

Quin Snyder could’ve had this gig for life like Jerry Sloan. In an era where a team’s success is graded on a binary scale of either winning a championship or not, Utah realistically understands that making the postseason every year is an underrated achievement and you don’t need to tear everything down if you don’t walk away with a chip.

But Snyder is a smart man. He looked around the room and knew it was time to move on. The Lakers have already stated their goal was to hire Juwan Howard as their next head coach but Snyder was still in consideration prior to their signing of Darvin Ham. If Snyder wanted to stay with the Jazz, his name wouldn’t have come up in rumors.

Let’s take a quick look at the uphill battle Quin Snyder would be facing had he decided to stay in Utah.

The Donovan Mitchell trade shit needs to be figured out. Every day there is a new report about how unhappy he is. Immediately following the news of Snyder’s departure, ESPN reported Mitchell was ‘unsettled’ and ‘disappointed’. Sure.

It’s obvious Mitchell feels as though his head is scraping the ceiling in Utah and he’s ready to play alongside players who can actually help him put points on the board. I don’t blame him for looking at a team like the Miami Heat and being like ‘damn, Royce O’Neale wouldn’t even crack this team’s rotation’.

Personally, I think Donovan Mitchell is overrated. Everyone allows references his two 50-point playoff games against the Denver Nuggets as some indicator of his ability to score at the highest level but…no. We can’t shrug off the Lakers ‘bubble ring’ while simultaneously praising Mitchell for dropping 50 in an empty gym.

He’s a great scorer but the more his usage rate rises, the more it’s clear he is more focused on getting himself going than he is distributing the ball and making his teammates better. Baron Davis and Gilbert Arenas were two of my favorite point guards to watch play the game. They are talented enough to raise a bad team’s floor but they aren’t great enough to lead a team to the Finals. And that’s fine by the way. It’s no slight to any of these players. They just need to play alongside better players than, well, Royce O’Neale.

And speaking of usage rate, Donovan Mitchell is at his best when Joe Ingles is out there aiding him in the ballhandling. Well Ingles is coming off a torn ACL that put him on the shelf all season and he’ll be 35 when next season starts. It’s safe to say, Ingles won’t be making the same impact on a basketball court ever again.

And then there’s Rudy Gobert—a player who is liked by exactly zero (0) of his colleagues. He’s a perennial defensive player of the year candidate with zero offensive ability. You knew it was over for this Jazz team when they were held to only 77 points in Game 5 against the Dallas Mavericks and Gobert was the only starter in double figures. You never want to look down and see Gobert is leading your team in points.

The Jazz need to break up Mitchell and Gobert.

The correct move would be tricking a team into giving away all of their assets for Donovan Mitchell. It would be far easier to replace his scoring than it would be to replace Gobert’s defense. The 6-foot-1 shooting guard who scores 25 a night but gives up at least 25 points defensively can be upgraded upon. The 7-footer who consistently leads the NBA in blocks and rebounds? Not so much.

It should also be pointed out that the Jazz starting point guard will be 35 when next season starts. Yike.

Quin Snyder saw a mess and went on the lam.

Probably doesn’t help that Danny Ainge is making decisions in the Jazz front office. Ainge spent most of his time in Boston collecting assets that could’ve been used to acquire Anthony Davis, Paul George and/or Jimmy Butler but never were. It’s cool to hoard a bunch of first round draft picks but if you never use those pieces to get win-now players, you just end up with a bunch of teenagers who aren’t good enough to win.

Snyder probably knew Ainge wasn’t going to take the big swing necessary to bring Utah to the promised land.

I was also prepared to say something clever about Dwyane Wade’s tiny ownership stake but I truly cannot believe I’ve already spent 1,000 words on the Utah fucking Jazz. This is more than enough. You get it.

Quin Snyder will probably wait around for the moment he will inevitably replace Gregg Popovich in San Antonio. I’d much rather hang out with Timmy Duncan than Karl Malone. You always want to avoid associating yourself with men who legally aren’t allowed near local parks.