The Utah Jazz made a philosophical change during the offseason. How might that affect Rudy Gobert?

Utah Jazz players Rudy Gobert, right, and Donovan Mitchell answer questions during Jazz Media Day at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 30, 2019. | Steve Griffin, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — The summer brought a somewhat significant philosophical shift for the Utah Jazz.

Yes, in line with what many NBA teams have done over the past few years, head coach Quin Snyder had been increasing the amount of time he employed lineups with just one non-shooting big man surrounded by guards and wings, but he still played Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors quite a bit together last season (739 minutes over 74 games).

On the first day of free agency in June, however, the Jazz agreed to a reported four-year, $73 million deal with free-agent forward Bojan Bogdanovic, which signaled the end of Favors’ time in Utah after nine years.

Not only did the Jazz no longer have the money to keep Favors, but in bringing Bogdanovic on a big contract, the team added a floor-spacing forward, ditching the idea that they want to continue to try to play two traditional big men together on a regular basis even though that helped them consistently be one of the league’s best defensive teams.

This switch is primed to have an effect on Gobert on both ends of the floor. On defense, where the Frenchman has been named the NBA’s best player two years in a row, he’ll no longer have a second excellent rim protector in Favors to share those duties with (Utah’s new backup center, Ed Davis, noted earlier this week that the plan is to not have him and the Stifle Tower play much together).

On offense, though, Gobert could end up being a big beneficiary, as a more spread out floor should, in theory, make the lane more open, especially in the pick-and-roll, for a player Donovan Mitchell at Monday’s annual preseason team media day called “the most dynamic roller in the NBA.”

“I think it’s a different challenge,” Gobert said at media day. “Obviously I think offensively, spacing for me as a guy that puts a lot of pressure on the rim is going to make it harder on a defense. They’re going to have to make tougher decisions, and space is going to be way more open for all the guards, too.”

Even through just a couple of days of practice, new starting point guard Mike Conley has already taken note of the impact Gobert, who averaged a career-high 15.9 points per game last season, can have on that end of the floor.

“He’s a big, big dude, man,” Conley said Wednesday, “and the screens he sets, what he opens up with the ability to roll — I’ve probably thrown more lobs in the last two days than I have in a long time, so it’s very fun.”

On the other end of the floor, Gobert acknowledged that more pressure could now end up being on him to continue being a dominant force.

“Defensively, I think we’re all going to have to do a little more,” he said. “I’m going to have to do more. We’re going to have to rebound as a team. We’re going to have to be a little tougher defensively, and I think we will.”

While defense is certainly a team concept, Jazz executive vice president of basketball operations Dennis Lindsey isn’t so concerned about the effect of losing Favors will have on Gobert defensively, because, “Rudy’s — as (former NBA head coach) Tom Thibodeau and others have said — a defense unto himself,” Lindsey said Monday.

Gobert is beginning training camp already having had a busy summer of basketball, as he helped lead France to a bronze medal at the FIBA World Cup in China last month (France defeated Joe Ingles and Australia in the third-place game).

New Jazzman William Howard, who is Gobert’s countryman, said at media day that France getting a medal will make Gobert’s popularity grow in his homeland, as the World Cup was a far bigger deal there than many in the United States felt it was.

“Before that, he was famous for people that were in the basketball world, but with this medal, it will bring him to be known by more people now,” Howard said.

Such would also certainly become the case if Gobert can help lead the Jazz further in the postseason than they have gone the past few years.

“It’s going to be great,” Davis said of being teammates with Gobert. “Two-time Defensive Player of the Year, he got snubbed on the All-Star thing. Whenever you can play with a guy of that caliber, I can learn a lot of things from him, I can teach him some things. It’s just going to be fun.”

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