That little voice in his head, the one that makes him hesitate before a shot?
Rodney Hood is coaching himself not to listen to it.
It can be a fine line between being an efficient top-option scoring threat and a reckless, spray-and-pray shooter, but the fourth-year wing knows he has to be more willing to fire than he’s been in the past. His team needs him to be.
“I can’t have a conscience, that’s the biggest thing,” he said Monday. “Not where I’m just jacking shots, but just being ready to shoot. That’s one of my specialties. With Ricky [Rubio] and Rudy [Gobert] on the pick and roll and I’m on the wing, I get a lot more open shots than I got in the past.”
Many of those shots were vacated this offseason when free agents Gordon Hayward and George Hill departed. Without the top two scorers from last season — they accounted for a combined 38.8 points per game of Utah’s 100.7-point average — there are a lot of questions for a lineup that lacks a lot of obvious firepower.
Coach Quin Snyder has said throughout the offseason that the Jazz’s offense will see significant tweaks given a changeover in personnel, which is no surprise. A pass-first point guard such as Rubio begs for some overhaul in style. So when asked how the Jazz will replace the production of Hayward, whose efficiency on offense helped him become an All-Star last year, Snyder understandably says the answer is not particularly straightforward. There’s not anyone who occupies the same role as Utah’s departed small forward.
“It’s a good question, and it’s one that’s a complicated question,” Snyder said. “I wouldn’t look at somebody and say he’s going to do what Gordon did.”
It seems that part of that identity will lie in what the Jazz see as their strength — defense. With Gobert protecting the rim and adding steal-creators in Rubio (1.7 spg in 2016-17), Thabo Sefolosha (1.5 spg) and potentially rookie Donovan Mitchell among others, Utah could be creating more fast-break opportunities.
TOUGH SCORING MATH FOR THE JAZZ <br>Who Utah lost <br>Gordon Hayward • 21.9 ppg; 7.1 offensive win shares (No. 17 in league); 27.6 usage rate <br>George Hill • 16.9 ppg; 59.9 true shooting percentage; 23.5 usage rate <br>Who could step up <br>Rodney Hood • 12.7 ppg; 37.1 3-point shooting percentage <br>Derrick Favors • 9.5 ppg; 49.0 effective field goal percentage <br>Ricky Rubio • 11.1 ppg; 9.1 apg (No. 4 in league)
There’s certainly room to grow. The Jazz were second-to-last in fast break points per game last year (8.1 ppg). Snyder said having Hayward as a weapon factored into Utah’s dedication to running half-court sets. Without him, defensive stops that turn into fast breaks could be more of a focal point, particularly with a passer like Rubio running the show.
“Talking about playing to our strengths, we have to try to take advantage of getting stops,” Snyder said. “We’ve run opportunistically, but usually more off turnovers. … It’s about creating habits.”
That by itself won’t account for how the Jazz make up the scoring gap, and team leadership has made it plain that they expect Hood, who is entering a contract year, to step up his game. After a promising second-year season, the Duke product struggled late last year as he recovered from injury. Both his points (12.7 ppg) and shooting efficiency (.494 eFG percentage) slipped, and he had up-and-down performances in the playoffs.
Being expected to be better is not a burden for Hood, who said he hopes to win the NBA’s Most Improved Player award this year. He’s been taking pointers from Joe Johnson, among other teammates, on how to become a more versatile scorer in addition to shoring up his reputation as a long-range marksman, and Snyder said he’s been impressed with some of what Hood can do in the post as a scorer.
“There’s still some stuff I’m still going to have to learn and get through,” Hood said. “But at the same time, I feel like I put in the work and I just gotta trust it.”
Of course Hood won’t be the only one the Jazz are counting on to pick up the scoring slack. There’s also hope that a slimmed-down Derrick Favors, whose production dropped from 16.5 ppg in 2015-16 to 9.5 ppg last year, will make a recovery. Favors said Monday that he’s healthier than he’s been in more than a year and a half, and he’s tried to erase last season from his memory.
While he acknowledged there’s still critics who question whether he and Gobert can play together in the frontcourt, he said he’s confident in both his passing and shooting range (out to 18 feet) to get back to the player he was. He sees himself as a player who needs to score more this year, and he’s hopeful his explosiveness has returned.
“I’ve been working on it,” he said. “It wasn’t something I was really focusing on, but I’m pretty sure it’s back.”
There are other areas where Utah’s offense could find some traction, particularly around Rubio (a career-best 9.1 apg per game last season), who seems likely to raise the Jazz’s rate of assists from 23rd (54.4 percent) in the league last year. Besides the likelihood that Utah tries to get penetration via the pick-and-roll, Rubio also has worked on his perimeter shooting, which he showed off while firing off more than three 3-pointers per game during the Eurobasket tournament for the Spanish national team.
But the real map of Utah’s offense is yet to be drawn. There are plenty of ideas floating around on Snyder’s whiteboard, but how it all really comes together and how effective that is — that’s still to be seen.
“This team offensively has to find its own identity,” Snyder said. “That’s really the best way to put it.”