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This season the Utah Jazz played nine different rookies as the 2014-2015 season went on: Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, Joe Ingles, Elijah Millsap, Bryce Cotton, Jack Cooley, Patrick Christopher, Grant Jerrett, and Jerrelle Benimon. Dante came into the league with a lot of hype, after all he was part of an international shoe store media campaign with like four different TV spots before he was even drafted. Rodney was selected by a few as the steal of the draft, and showed his shooting stroke in Vegas and the regular season. Joe is a great utility man for today's game, Eli is a hard nosed defender who attacks the rim, Bryce is a great chance of pace guard who can score effectively off the bounce, and Jack is a throwback bigman who makes us all smile. Pat, Grant, and Jerrelle all got a chance to shine at times as well. But perhaps the best rookie for this season was head coach Quin Snyder.
I'm very impressed with the defense he has brought, and understand very little of his offense, but know that when it works it looks awesome. He has a very conservative strategy to playing guys who foul, but use much of the game to teach and instruct. That's exactly what this team needs, and he's doing it without having some old sage head coach on his bench. And when you compare his first season to that of the rest of the Jazz history (New Orleans and Utah combined) you see that he's already one of the best ever.
| Regular Season | Playoffs | Total Jazz Career | |||||||||||||
| Coach | Seas | W | L | % | Series | W | L | % | G/82 | W | L | % | W/82 | ||
| 1 | Jerry Sloan | 23 | 1127 | 682 | 62.3% | 38 | 96 | 100 | 49.0% | 24.5 | 1223 | 782 | 61.0% | 50.0 | |
| 2 | Frank Layden | 8 | 277 | 294 | 48.5% | 8 | 18 | 23 | 43.9% | 7.5 | 295 | 317 | 48.2% | 39.5 | |
| 3 | Quin Snyder | 1 | 38 | 44 | 46.3% | 1.0 | 38 | 44 | 46.3% | 38.0 | |||||
| 4 | Tyrone Corbin | 4 | 112 | 146 | 43.4% | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0.0% | 3.2 | 112 | 150 | 42.7% | 35.1 | |
| 5 | Butch Van Breda Kolff | 3 | 74 | 100 | 42.5% | 2.1 | 74 | 100 | 42.5% | 34.9 | |||||
| 6 | Elgin Baylor | 4 | 86 | 135 | 38.9% | 2.7 | 86 | 135 | 38.9% | 31.9 | |||||
| 7 | Tom Nissalke | 3 | 60 | 124 | 32.6% | 2.2 | 60 | 124 | 32.6% | 26.7 | |||||
| 8 | Scott Robertson | 1 | 1 | 14 | 6.7% | 0.2 | 1 | 14 | 6.7% | 5.5 | |||||
Also, it's funny that the 2nd best Jazz head coach behind Jerry, is Jerry in the playoffs.
We can expect that Snyder's win percentage will increase over the rest of his four year contract with the team. With guys like Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert and others on the squad it only makes sense that it will. The next step is to be the 4th Jazz coach to lead his team to the playoffs.
He's not going to get any love for Coach of the Year, not when Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens goes to the playoffs. But he's a head coach the rest of the NBA is going to be watching as he grows and develops with his young players.