Ricky Rubio and Jae Crowder are winning basketball players

Before the 2017-2018 season, Ricky Rubio and Jae Crowder had become quite the +/- stars in the NBA. Despite being on poor teams at times, these two were able to show positive impact for their teams. Over on Cleaning The Glass, they decided to look at a few of these Plus-Minus Machines in the league, two of which ended up on Utah’s roster:

He also played often with two non-shooting big men, with Derrick Favors at power forward and Rudy Gobert at center. That required a large adjustment on Rubio’s part and a more congested paint is perhaps the reason he drew shooting fouls at one of the lowest rates of his career and went to floaters and runners more often. Here’s some of the section on Rubio:

How could Rubio, whose shooting has always been a question mark, produce effective offense with two other non-shooters on the court? It took time for the Jazz to figure it out. But they did. As I wrote in March, before Gobert went down with an injury, the Jazz just could not score with all three of those players on the court. But by the time Gobert returned from his injury, something was different. After that point the Jazz were remarkably effective with the Rubio/Favors/Gobert trio, scoring much more efficiently while continuing to post a very solid defensive mark.

And here’s a piece from Crowder’s section:

The positive news for the Jazz, though, is that even with Crowder not on top of his game, he was part of a very effective unit for them: Their starting lineup but with Crowder at PF instead of Favors was a +34.8 per 100 possessions in 704 possessions. That performance is so good—on a reasonable sample of possessions and without any crazy fluky shooting on either end—that we should be fairly confident there’s something real there. It’s a lineup to watch out for this coming season, because if it can remain even close to as effective, the Jazz will have a grouping that is powered by two conventional stars (Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert) and two plus-minus machines.

I don’t think Dennis Lindsey puts an excessive amount of stock into one statistic like plus-minus, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of these guys ended up on the Utah Jazz. Utah’s general manager has become really good at identifying talent that fits the culture and system that Quin Snyder has built.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for some Jazz jersey concepts. Here was some fun ones looking forward to Utah’s Christmas Day game.

What do you think?

A Hall of Famer decided to hang them up yesterday. Whether you liked Manu Ginobli or not, he has had a legendary 16-year career for the San Antonio Spurs and was a vital member of their Big 3 that won so many championships.

The Utah Jazz decided to pay their respects to the Argentinian guard.

I didn’t love the guy, but I absolutely respected him. My favorite memory will definitely be the time he slapped that bat right out of the air on live tv. That was awesome.

I didn’t love Manu, but I absolutely respected him. It’s going to be so weird next year when the Spurs won’t have either one of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, or Manu Ginobli suiting up.

Another all-time great added to his legend yesterday as well. The Jazz bear was awarded the mascot of the year for the 3rd time!

I do enjoy some of the entertainment provided by one of the the best mascots in all of sports.

Back in 2005, David Stern implemented an age limit for the NBA. It’s a topic of debate every season. Should there be an age limit? Should kids have to go to school for at least 2 years. Should there be no rule at all?

Sbnation decided to look at 5 potential ways to end the age limit.

1. Funnel teenagers into the G League

2. Adopt a baseball-style college rule

3. Develop an academy system

4. Hold a draft only for teenagers

5. Just get rid of it

They go into further details with each one of those, so give it a read if you’d like. I’m curious what your thoughts are on the matter? What do you think the best solution to the current situation is?