The Jazz have been one of the NBA's most-pleasant surprises. Featuring a creative and flowing offense, they can be an absolute joy to watch. Competing for the playoffs despite trading Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell makes for an appealing storyline.
But Utah hit a rough patch in November/December when its second-best player, Mike Conley, got hurt. Near the end of Conley's 11-game absence, Utah's breakout star – Lauri Markkanen – fell ill and missed a few games, too. Finally, Conley and Markkanen returned for a Dec. 13 game against the Pelicans. Except one of New Orleans' best players, Brandon Ingram, missed the game. Ingram also missed a rematch between the teams two nights later. Then, the Jazz faced the Bucks… without Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Utah went a full month between games that included both teams' top two players.
The Jazz are not an outlier. They don't rank in even the bottom third of the league for High Quality Matchups. That's what we're calling games that feature both teams' top two players.
No, that's not a perfect measure of whether a game is a high-quality matchup. Yes, it's subjective. But it's the shorthand we're using to identify when teams resemble how they're designed to look when healthy.
So far this season, just 38% of games have been High Quality Matchups.
That High Quality Matchup Rate has trended downward since reaching 60% 65 games into the season. Here's the cumulative High Quality Matchup Rate as the season has progressed:
With Chris Paul then Devin Booker injured, the Suns have played just 15 games with both star guards in the lineup. Add opponent absences, Phoenix has a High Quality Matchup Rate of just 15%.
On the flip side, with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown mostly healthy and their opponents happening to have their stars available, the Celtics have a 65% High Quality Matchup Rate.
Here's the High Quality Matchup Rate for each team:
By now, you're probably wondering how we picked the top two players on each team. We considered player quality, prominence, value and watchability. On a win-now team, it skews more toward the best two players. On a rebuilding team, younger players important to the franchise drew more consideration. The list:
- ATL: Trae Young & Dejounte Murray
- BOS: Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown
- BRK: Kevin Durant & Kyrie Irving
- CHA: LaMelo Ball & Terry Rozier
- CHI: Zach LaVine & DeMar DeRozan
- CLE: Donovan Mitchell & Evan Mobley*
- DAL: Luka Doncic & Spencer Dinwiddie
- DEN: Nikola Jokic & Jamal Murray
- DET: Cade Cunningham & Bojan Bogdanovic*
- GSW: Stephen Curry & Draymond Green
- HOU: Jalen Green & Alperen Sengun
- IND: Tyrese Haliburton & Myles Turner
- LAC: Kawhi Leonard & Paul George
- LAL: LeBron James & Anthony Davis
- MEM: Ja Morant & Jaren Jackson Jr.
- MIA: Jimmy Butler & Bam Adebayo
- MIL: Giannis Antetokounmpo & Jrue Holiday
- MIN: Anthony Edwards & Karl-Anthony Towns
- NOP: Zion Williamson & Brandon Ingram
- NYK: Jalen Brunson & Julius Randle
- OKC: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Josh Giddey
- ORL: Paolo Banchero & Franz Wagner
- PHI: Joel Embiid & James Harden
- PHO: Devin Booker & Chris Paul
- POR: Damian Lillard & Jerami Grant
- SAC: De'Aaron Fox & Domantas Sabonis
- SAS: Devin Vassell & Keldon Johnson
- TOR: Pascal Siakam & Fred VanVleet
- UTA: Lauri Markkanen & Mike Conley
- WAS: Bradley Beal & Kristaps Porzingis
*We chose Evan Mobley over Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen and Bojan Bogdanovic over Jaden Ivey – calls that could have gone either way based on player prominence – because that's what yielded the MOST High Quality Matchups.
We might need to update this list after the trade deadline, as players could change teams or get supplanted. But for simplicity, we used the same top two for each team for the season to date.
Yet, we're opening to changing top twos as we track High Quality Matchups going forward. In this load-management era, we think it's a metric worth monitoring.
-Dan Feldman