Rowan Kavner
SALT LAKE CITY – It’s not the rebounding, the blocks or the dunks that stand out to Utah head coach Quin Snyder when he thinks about DeAndre Jordan.
Snyder said all that is evident, and he could echo the sentiments of everyone else when they talk about Jordan’s best traits, but what he believes doesn’t get referenced enough is Jordan’s intelligence on the court.
“I just think he’s a really smart player,” Snyder said before Saturday’s game. “I had a little moment with him where he’s looking at me for a play call and I was telling him, I said, ‘You don’t know our calls yet?’ and he says, ‘We’ve only played you once,’ so I figured he would remember it from last year.”
Snyder compared Jordan to Ray Lewis or Mike Singletary the way he reads an offense.
“One of those guys that’s kind of a captain defensively and tells people where to go and what to do,” Snyder said. “He has that kind of presence in a game, not just at the rim.”
In order to be that vocal, Snyder said, a player has to be smart enough to know what he’s talking about. In the case of Jordan, Snyder said he can tell what the center says has a major impact on what goes on with the Clippers’ defense.
Snyder said his own young, talented frontcourt players aren’t there vocally the way Jordan is yet, and that the Clippers’ center is someone they could look to learn from in that regard.
But it wasn’t always that way for Jordan. The basketball IQ was always there, but the way he reads opposing offenses and then speaks up unabashedly has developed over time.
“We really encouraged it,” said head coach Doc Rivers. “I think it was natural, he just didn’t know it. I don’t think it was ever encouraged for him. Giving him the title of defensive captain I thought helped his confidence. Actually, I think it was natural, he just hadn’t done it.”
Cole Aldrich has known Jordan since high school. When Aldrich came to the Clippers, he knew Jordan was one of the team leaders, but he immediately noticed one of Jordan’s best attributes was how comfortable he had become saying something to a teammate if Jordan felt he needed to speak up.
“Or on the court, saying, ‘Try this, try that,’ he’s really good about it,” Aldrich said. “Some guys are just vocal just to be vocal. Some guys speak when they want to be heard. Every time DJ speaks, everybody’s ears perk up and listen.
“We all know he’s smart and he knows what he’s talking about. That’s what’s fun. You see that, and you kind of see the evolution from when we were all little high school kids to now. To see that growth is cool.”
Rivers said there’s no such thing as a good defensive player with a low basketball IQ. But not every high IQ player can communicate what he sees to others.
Some players, Rivers said, can’t see the game the way Jordan and other top-notch defenders do; others aren’t good talkers and can get marginally better over time if they’re wise enough to see actions before they happen.
Then there are some, as Jordan is now, that combine their basketball acumen with communication skills and thrive in both regards.
“Kevin Garnett is probably the poster child of defensive talk on the floor,” Rivers said. “Since then, I think a lot of guys have followed suit from playing against him or with him. They see it.”
Jordan is one of those players, and the need for the Clippers’ center to be vocal and a leader and thrive is more evident than ever with the news of Blake Griffin’s absence. Jordan took his game to another level last year when Griffin went down, and he said he needs to step up again.
“With him out, it’s going to be less scoring, less rebounding, less of a defensive impact,” Jordan said. “A lot of the onus is on me. I want to be able to contribute even more when a guy like that is out.”
When told how Snyder complimented Jordan’s intelligence, the gregarious center joked about how he dropped out of college. But in all seriousness, Jordan said he tries to be as knowledgeable as possible about other team’s plays and coverages, using that information to try to help particularly early in games to get players in the right spots.
Jordan said Snyder made it a point not to call his plays out in front of him this time around.
“We had some laughs about it,” Jordan said. “But they have a lot of great plays and they attack the basket and have shooters…I just try to put us in a position to be ready.”
