Derrick Favors is Back in the Spotlight: 'I'm Still That Guy'

The Utah Jazz win with defense. That’s been the case ever since they traded Enes Kanter and thrust Rudy Gobert into the starting lineup. The Jazz have plus defenders all over the floor, but Gobert anchors everything. He’s the best rim-protector in the league by a fairly significant margin. When he’s on the floor, the opposition is terrified to venture into the paint.

The rise of Gobert has pushed his frontcourt mate, Derrick Favors, ever so slightly to the side. It doesn’t help that Favors has been injured on and off over the last couple seasons, slashing his playing time and neutering his effectiveness. Favors appeared in just 50 games last season and didn’t crack 24 minutes a night in playing time. He saw not just his per-game numbers, but also his per-36 minutes averages in scoring and blocks dip to the lowest they’d been in years.

Coming off that down campaign, he’s now in the final season of the four-year extension he signed back in 2013. Heading into the season, it seemed like Favors was playing out the string in Utah—he did not seem well positioned to show what he could do. Then Gobert got hurt. That knee injury is a massive blow for the Jazz, but a huge opportunity for Favors to reestablish himself. At least, that’s the way he’s approaching it.

“That’s my whole mindset,” he says. “I was hurt last year, so I think a lot of people, they’re judging my whole career off of last year when I was hurt. I definitely want to come back and establish who I am as a player and let people know that last year I was just hurt, so don’t base me off that year. Base me off the years I was healthy.”

A healthy Favors was an automatic 15 and 8 for the three years prior to Gobert’s emergence. (18 and 10 with two blocks per-36 minutes.) The league has changed in that time, but it has changed in a way that should actually help him become more effective. The NBA’s gradual shift to the perimeter has been accelerated to the point where nearly every team plays with only one “true” big man on the floor most of the time, allowing that player — and everyone else — more space in which to operate. Favors should thrive when he’s that guy.

“Obviously the spacing changes when Derrick’s playing without Derrick, essentially,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder says. “There’s more space in the middle of the floor. And he’s very good getting into that pocket and making plays. That’s an area where he’s really efficient. So, I think it’s complemented his game really well.”

Utah has played five games without Gobert as of this writing. The game-to-game figures have fluctuated but overall, Favors has given the Jazz 16 points a night, and he’s up at 10 rebounds and two blocks per game as well. He’s already surpassed his season high in points from a year ago (20) twice. He’s blocked at least one shot in every game and at least two in three of five. He’s grabbed double-digit rebounds in every game but one.

He’s been more involved as the primary screener in Utah’s pick-and-roll offense, rather than being stashed in the dunker spot, and his paint touches have correspondingly soared from 4.3 per game prior to Gobert’s injury to 11.8 per game. And Favors has been no less effective with those touches, shooting 64 percent from the field any time he’s touched the ball inside the lane. In other words, he’s looked a whole lot like we expected Derrick Favors to look every time he stepped on the floor before last season threw everything about his reputation off-kilter.

“I feel like I’m back at that level,” Favors says. “I’m still finding my rhythm, but overall, I’m still that guy that can go out there and protect the paint, cover space, score the ball, be that anchor defensively. I still feel like I’m that same player.”

Whether or not that same player has a place in the Jazz organization beyond this season is up for debate. The core of the next era of Jazz basketball is going to be built around Gobert no matter what happens now. And the same benefits Favors receives from playing in more space would obviously work in Gobert’s favor as well—only Gobert’s the superior player in almost every way. Utah could almost certainly use $12 million salary Favors is drawing right now on a slightly different (less redundant) set of skills this summer, and if Favors takes as much advantage of the Gobert-less time as he plans to, he could price himself out of the Jazz’s plans anyway.

Though it seems like he’s been in the league forever and a day, Favors is actually only 26 years old. (Yes, you read that correctly.) His next contract should cover his physical prime, and in theory, he should be in high demand. He’s a young(ish), athletic big man that can defend in space and protect the rim and work as a quality secondary offensive option — or even the focal point in a pinch. But the market for big men who aren’t franchise pillars shrunk to almost nothing last summer, and the number of teams with more than nominal cap space looks like it’ll be even smaller this time around. Add in injury concerns, and it’s not hard to see there being less interest than the combination of his age and skills might suggest.

That’s why Favors knows he has to flesh out his skill set even more. The next step is taking his game where the rest of the league has been moving—the three-point line. Coming into this season, he’d only attempted 26 shots from outside the arc in his entire career, with a single-season high of 10 he hoisted a year ago. Already this year he’s attempted 15—mostly from the corners (“Gotta crawl before you can walk, Favors says”)—but he thinks it’ll eventually just be a regular part of his game.

“I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to shoot them—it’s still a work in progress,” he says. “I’m not gonna come out shooting 40 percent yet. Might be at 30, 33 percent. Not 40 percent yet. But it’s definitely something I’m still working on, something I’m going into the offseason really focusing on, and come back next season and be a much better three-point shooter.”

Favors has spent most of his career working as the four in two-big lineups because those are the kinds of teams he’s been on, but he realizes that in the current NBA his skill set lends itself to being a full-time five. Favors has the next few weeks to prove what he can do as the pivot man, but Gobert will be back eventually, and the team will re-orient itself around him once he returns. For now, Favors is confident that even when pushed back to the “second big man” role, things will be just fine.

“Me and Rudy, we can play really well together,” he says. “We play off each other really well. Yeah, with more space, it’s a little easier. But whether with space or not space, man, you’ve just got to go out there and play.”