Is Slo-Mo Joe … stepping it up?
When asked what the biggest change in his 30-year-old teammate has been this season, Derrick Favors seems to think so.
“He’s faster,” said Favors, before adding a qualification: “... Faster than he was in previous years.”
Part of the appeal of Joe Ingles is he doesn’t change much. He works on parts of his game, sure: That’s how he got to be one of the three best 3-point shooters in the NBA last season, and that’s why he’s evolved from Euroleague role player to NBA starter in his late-blooming career.
But the conventional wisdom on NBA career arcs doesn’t seem to apply with Ingles: He was never a dominant player at even lower levels of the game. It has been his willingness to be a complimentary piece that has helped his rise.
So though he has a new $52 million, four-year contract in his pocket, don’t expect him to change. While he’s playing more minutes now than ever in the NBA and taking more shots, he doesn’t feel pressure to suddenly become a bigger focal point for the Utah Jazz.
Ingles keeps playing his way. With extended minutes, there’s just going to be more of it.
“I didn’t sign my new deal and think, “Oh, now I gotta average 16 points” or anything like that,” he said. “The beauty of the NBA is having success together. Having to shoot 15 shots in one game then one the next, that’s what it is. I guess I try to play the same way.”
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To be clear, the numbers are up. Much of that is a direct reflection of his playing time, a career-high 29.2 minutes per game. He’s seen a rise in points (7.1 per game to 10.2), rebounds (3.2 to 4.3) and shot attempts (5.5 to 8.1).
Helping the Jazz break a four-game losing streak on Nov. 11, Ingles had 17 points, six rebounds and five assists against the Brooklyn Nets — a big stat line even though his seemed to be the fourth- or fifth-most notable performance of the evening.
That’s typical. It doesn’t always look like Ingles is having a big game, but his fellow Jazzmen can feel his control, whether it’s creating open shots at the rim on a pick-and-roll, or frustrating the tar out of a player he’s defending.
“He just goes out there and makes the right play, makes the right pass, and if he has a chance to take a shot, he’ll take the shot,” Favors said. “Defensively he does a lot of good things when he plays the game. It might not show on the stat sheet all the time, but as a teammate, you can feel it out there.”
Consider how unusual this role is for Ingles: He hasn’t averaged double-figure points for a season since he played in Spain in 2009. Two of his former Maccabi Tel Aviv teammates visited Utah this past week, and expressed surprise that Ingles has been able to carve out his Jazz role after averaging 6.4 points per game for their Euroleague championship team in 2014.
After he shot 16 attempts against Philadelphia, assistant coach Zach Guthrie told him, to his surprise, it was the most shots he had ever taken in the NBA. But little about the increased production feels forced. Ingles is a player who works within Utah’s offense for his looks and rarely breaks out of what the Jazz want him to do.
“Joe’s been in the moment when he’s playing,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “I don’t think he was playing for a contract last year, and I don’t think he’s trying to play like he’s got a contract.”
The biggest adjustment for Ingles might be a less visible one: In the first few years with the Jazz, he ate almost every road meal alongside Gordon Hayward, Dante Exum and Trey Lyles. When the team was out in different cities, those players were his circle.
Two of them have left the team, via free agency and trade, and Exum is injured. While Exum still visits Ingles and his family when the team is at home, Ingles acknowledged that he’s tried to reach out more to others on the team. It helps that he had previous history with new teammates Ricky Rubio, Jonas Jerebko and Ekpe Udoh.
“I don’t dislike anybody on my team, but you’re not going to be as close with everybody as with certain people,” he said. “It makes you broaden your friendship groups a little more.”
On the court, the Jazz are still pushing Ingles to take more shots. On more than one occasion in the first 19 games, Snyder has singled out Ingles to yell “Shoot it!” after he’s passed up an open shot — Ingles laughs a bit recalling those moments. But it’s starting to take hold: He’s had double-digit attempts in five of the last nine games.
Ingles said he’s yet to internalize that voice, the one telling him to fire away. He’ll keep taking the open looks he gets, but his style has taken him this far — and he doesn’t want to stop being himself.
“Every team I’ve been on, I haven’t been that focal part,” he said. “I guess since being here, I’ve heard it a lot. This year even more. I’m not gonna change the way I play. I’m going to pick and choose the way I’m going to be aggressive.”
