Finnisher or Limmiter

I went through the rosters of all NBA teams. For almost every team their best scorer averages at least 5 assists. They collapse or draw out the defenses and pass to the wide open teammate. Their ability to make quick, precise passes greatly multiplies their impact. And then there is Utah Jazz where Lauri just reached 2.0 assists per game for the first time this season. The only other NBA team somewhat close to the Jazz in that respect are the hapless, hopeless Nets: 3.6 APG for Bridges and 2.9 APG for Cam Thomas.

Instead of multiplying his impact Lauri lessens the impact of his teammates: he needs very specific players who can set him up and who can empty the paint for his drives. As a result the Jazz relied so heavily on freaking Olynyk for their offense to function. They could not play together their most natural lineup of Kessler, Hendrix and Lauri. We all agree that Lauri is not the natural or long-term first option but until we find it (and how many years would it take?) his being the the main engine of offense will put a hard, hard ceiling on what the Jazz can achieve as a team. It will also force Hardy to play some unnatural, suboptimal lineups and would guide the development of young players along the route of facilitating the attack for a non-passing forward, which is not the most useful skill. I am not sure if having on your roster someone called Finnisher is such a blessing: it could easily turn out to be a curse in the end.

P.S. Lauri is probably my favorite player on the Jazz right now.

Lauri is as good as it gets as an off ball player, it's the reason why he fits on any and every roster. He does not lessen his teammates and the fact that he's able to be so productive without dominant ball handlers is a testament to his ability. Being able to make an impact without needing the ball is a virtue. He's not Kevin Durant, does not mean he's a curse to your team lmao. Take any offensive superstar player in the league, Lauri is automatically one of the best pairings with that player. This is not true of all ball dominant stars.

Silly talking point.

Had no Conley ,just a bunch of ball dominant shooters that sometimes never even gave him a touch for long spells. if the Jazz get the right guard ,Lauri will look better than ever.

KqWIN said:

Take any offensive superstar player in the league, Lauri is automatically one of the best pairings with that player. This is not true of all ball dominant stars.

Silly talking point.

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But there were no other offensive superstars on the jazz, not for the last two years. And, almost certainly, there will not be the next season either. The Jazz is the ONLY team in the league that built their offense around the non-passing scorer. We hope that Lauri will hang on until this prince in shining armor finally arrives but we already have casualties: Kessler is clearly unhappily languishing on the bench because of that.

What are the chances that we will have a superstar better than Lauri on this team in the next two years? Three years? Rookies take time to develop and trades... when was the last time the Jazz acquired a superstar via trade? The most likely scenario is that Lauri will still be the best player on the Jazz in the foreseeable future.

jazznik said:

But there were no other offensive superstars on the jazz, not for the last two years. And, almost certainly, there will not be the next season either. The Jazz is the ONLY team in the league that built their offense around the non-passing scorer. We hope that Lauri will hang on until this prince in shining armor finally arrives but we already have casualties: Kessler is clearly unhappily languishing on the bench because of that.

What are the chances that we will have a superstar better than Lauri on this team in the next two years? Three years? Rookies take time to develop and trades... when was the last time the Jazz acquired a superstar via trade? The most likely scenario is that Lauri will still be the best player on the Jazz in the foreseeable future.

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The more you talk about how there was not offensive talent, the more you are singing Lauri's praises. If Lauri is the best player on the team, that is not a problem with Lauri. I don't know what your point is. If we can't get a better player, it's Lauri's fault because he's the best? Turns out, if you don't get players your team is limited. It does not mean your best player is the one limiting you. This idea that it's his fault and he's limiting his players and he's the reason why our lineups suck is so *** backward it's not even worth a conversation. It's comical that you think the lineups are suboptimal on the basis of having Lauri.

Lauri's ability to fit with other players is his biggest strength. The fact that the team around him sucks has got nothing to do with him. When it comes to all star level players, you be very hard pressed to find one that is easier to fit into a team than Lauri.

KqWIN said:

Lauri's ability to fit with other players is his biggest strength. The fact that the team around him sucks has got nothing to do with him. When it comes to all star level players, you be very hard pressed to find one that is easier to fit into a team than Lauri.

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But that is the team that we have right now. The team that sucks, and sucks partly because Lauri does not make other players better.

However, lets look at the top teams in the NBA right now with two all stars and compare Lauri with other second options. How many of them are non-passing scorers?

Boston: Tatum and Braun (both are good passers)
Knicks: Brunson and Randle (both are excellent passers)
Bucks: Giannis and Lillard (both are excellent passers)
OKC: SGA and Williams (both are good passers)
Nuggets: Jokic and Murray (both are excellent passers)
Minnesota: Ant and Towns (finally, Towns is only an average passer)

Out of six best teams only one had a second option who is not a good passer. Incidentally, Towns is the player who is the most similar to Lauri (a tall driver and 3-point shooter, not a great passer and an average defender). And Towns is constantly rumored to be shopped or traded in the future, despite being a markedly better passing version of Lauri. There are no second options like Lauri on the best NBA teams, with KAT being the closest match. I think this is a bit concerning.

jazznik said:

But that is the team that we have right now. The team that sucks, and sucks partly because Lauri does not make other players better.

However, lets look at the top teams in the NBA right now with two all stars and compare Lauri with other second options. How many of them are non-passing scorers?

Boston: Tatum and Braun (both are good passers)
Knicks: Brunson and Randle (both are excellent passers)
Bucks: Giannis and Lillard (both are excellent passers)
OKC: SGA and Williams (both are good passers)
Nuggets: Jokic and Murray (both are excellent passers)
Minnesota: Ant and Towns (finally, Towns is only an average passer)

Out of six best teams only one had a second option who is not a good passer. Incidentally, Towns is the player who is the most similar to Lauri (a tall driver and 3-point shooter, not a great passer and an average defender). And Towns is constantly rumored to be shopped or traded in the future, despite being a markedly better passing version of Lauri. There are no second options like Lauri on the best NBA teams, with KAT being the closest match. I think this is a bit concerning.

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Yeah the team we have right now sucks. We don’t suck because we have Lauri lmao.

Lauri makes his teammates better. What are you even talking about. There is more than one way to help your teammates. You don’t think his teammates benefit from the spacing and attention he draws off the ball? What do you think happens to this team when he is on the bench or sits? If you swap Lauri with any of those “second options” those teams are still great. The difference between us and them isn’t that we have Lauri and they do not. The difference is that those teams are better.

Lauri helps a team that is complete ****, like us, he also helps a team that is good get better. There does not exist a team that Lauri does not dramatically help on offense. This is not true for every star player because most star players need the ball to make a star level impact. Lauri is unique in that he does not.

He is arguably top 1 in the entire league at playing without the ball, and that is why he fits with any and every team. They are not good enough to have the impact he does without having the ball. You really think those teams would not be top teams if they had Lauri? Absolutely ridiculous lmao. The reason top teams do not have a player like Lauri is because there does not exist many players like Lauri. Ironically, the two most similar players to Lauri would be Towns and Porzingis. But here we go….its Lauri’s fault because we don’t have players that are better than him right?

You know who also doesn’t have Lauri as their best player? Every other team. Look at the bottom of the league. Is DET good because Cade has the ball all the time? What about WAS with Poole. Lauri will help a team whose ball handlers are good, bad, or average. It does not matter.

Honestly, this is up there with one of the dumbest arguments I have ever seen. This isn’t even worth a discussion. Lauri isn’t even top two usage on the Jazz. How in the hell do you come away with the opinion that it’s Lauri that is suboptimal and not that it’s the ball dominant guys on roster who are suboptimal. If Lauri wasn’t godly effective and therefore wasn’t a leading scorer, our issues would be worse not better.

Btw, when Lauri was on the court this season we had an offensive rating that would have been 3rd in the league. Last year it would have been good for 2nd in the league. I promise you Lauri is not the issue

Lauri is improving his passing though, and he needs to. Compare very early season to this 2024. (I added two screenshots of stats)

Jazz is lacking both naturally playmaking forwards, and also lacks guards that recognize mismatches on time. It effectively lowers everyone's assist numbers as well. Jazz started to feed Lauri more consistently and found themselves more open looks, thus, Lauri started having more of these games with 3-6 assists

It also has to be noted how misleading the header of this thread is: if Jazz is having better offensive ratings with Lauri on vs. Lauri out, how in world he can be limiter?

Oh, and one additional thing to be noted, is after we traded JO we started using Lauri in some plays we usually run through Kelly. Well, if course he nor most anyone can become as good Kelly is, but Lauri did decent job, and I expect this is one of the things Hardy will run more on becoming season.

And about the off ball threat, that was mentioned in this thread: Lauri tweaked his arsenal with his shot release for this season to counter a bit the constant face guarding and double teams. He told in Finnish interview before the season how he started to train super fast release without the dip,just three weeks before the season. Regardless,it seems working and us one of the key contributing details on how he maintained his status as the best off ball player in the league,having the most points per possession

jazznik said:

I went through the rosters of all NBA teams. For almost every team their best scorer averages at least 5 assists. They collapse or draw out the defenses and pass to the wide open teammate. Their ability to make quick, precise passes greatly multiplies their impact. And then there is Utah Jazz where Lauri just reached 2.0 assists per game for the first time this season. The only other NBA team somewhat close to the Jazz in that respect are the hapless, hopeless Nets: 3.6 APG for Bridges and 2.9 APG for Cam Thomas.

Instead of multiplying his impact Lauri lessens the impact of his teammates: he needs very specific players who can set him up and who can empty the paint for his drives. As a result the Jazz relied so heavily on freaking Olynyk for their offense to function. They could not play together their most natural lineup of Kessler, Hendrix and Lauri. We all agree that Lauri is not the natural or long-term first option but until we find it (and how many years would it take?) his being the the main engine of offense will put a hard, hard ceiling on what the Jazz can achieve as a team. It will also force Hardy to play some unnatural, suboptimal lineups and would guide the development of young players along the route of facilitating the attack for a non-passing forward, which is not the most useful skill. I am not sure if having on your roster someone called Finnisher is such a blessing: it could easily turn out to be a curse in the end.

P.S. Lauri is probably my favorite player on the Jazz right now.

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It's almost like you created a narrative and started pulling random stats and facts to support your narrative.

You give an impression that Lauri would require KO to facilitate, when in reality, out of all the active players, Lauri played the least minutes per game with Kelly. It is also a very strange conclusion that the lesser playing time of Kessler would be due to Lauri, but can you name even one PF in the entire league who would fit better next to Walker?

Edit. Ok. Juzang, Lewis, Samanic and Potter played less than Kelly.

While I agree that Lauri needs to develop his passing, it isnt a problem and his assist number is probably capped somewhere way below 5 due to his off ball role and style of play as a sniper. I would say Klay Thompson who averages 2.3 for his career with a career high of 2.9 is close to the ceiling that Lauri could ever reach, and Lauri actually dribbles way less than Klay (in fact, over 50% less dribbles per touch). So he wont increase his assists that much unless he simultaneously stops taking the shots that he currently takes and hits at near 50/40 rate... which btw is pretty decent efficiency.

He does still elevate the rest of the team by drawing attention in scouting reports and on the court where the opponent need to send one of their better defenders to constantly chaperone him. Its one reason why Golden State offense has been so good, as Klay has opened up things for Steph just as Steph did to Klay even though Klay probably benefitted more from that partnership.

Just for additional context:
Lauri is not top 5 in the team in either time of possession or dribbles despite leading the team in minutes. He averages 33.1 minutes and possesses the ball just 1.6 of those minutes. I dont really know how you are supposed to generate 5+ assists if your role is to be without the ball over 95% of the time (literally, since 1.6 minutes out of 33.1 is less than 5%).

He happens to be our best player, but thats just because we dont happen to have better on-ball players. Doesnt make Lauri any worse of a player.

Also I want to remind that Hardy emphasizes players understanding their roles and doing what is expected of them. So to assess any player and how they actually perform, we would need to put it in context of what their (current) role is. We dont even know how much those roles get adjusted on per game basis.

After all NBA is organized basketball, not pickup ball where you just do random things if/when you get the ball.

If you watch the Jazz with and without Lauri it's clear that he is an offensive force. He bends defenses and makes everyone's life easier. For him to do that without the ball in his hands is truly remarkable.

Lots of really good, thoughtful responses that were a pleasure to read. Thank you all guys for that. I want to clarify few things. Of course, Lauri is helping the Jazz right now : he is a very good player. I was talking more about turning the Jazz into a contender and that is why I looked at rosters of the current contenders. Almost all of them have two offensive forces that can also be playmakers. Sometimes you can get away with your second option not being a great playmaker but then they have to be an awesome defender like AD. Lauri is none of that: all he brings is scoring.

He IS similar in that to KAT, Porzingis and (a bit less but still) Thompson. And all of these players could not cut it as a legit second option on a contender: the teams needed to have a third all-star to cover their deficiencies by bringing playmaking or defense. Lauri is a poor second option, but he is an awesome third option. When you have two stars who are both scorers and playmakers you can start filling out the roster with role players (that what Dallas is doing right now). When you have someone like Lauri, Porzingis or KAT you still need to find another star to become a contender.

Building around Lauri simply requires adding two more star pieces instead of one and this would be very difficult to pull out even for Ainge. Instead of one successful trade you will need two, or scoring big in both trades and drafting.

If Lauri were playing next to Lebron or Luka Doncic, everyone would be praising his ability to be a complementary star player. The problem is that, right now, the Jazz's best advantage creator is Collin Sexton trying to drive downhill. This just isn't going to allow Lauri's game to flourish (or anyone else's for that matter).

LeBron and AD. Giannis and Lillard. Jokic and Murray.

But Ant and KAT AND Gobert AND Conley. Curry and Klay AND Dray. Tatum and Porzingis AND Brown.

Ferguson_Mellochill said:

If Lauri were playing next to Lebron or Luka Doncic, everyone would be praising his ability to be a complementary star player. The problem is that, right now, the Jazz's best advantage creator is Collin Sexton trying to drive downhill. This just isn't going to allow Lauri's game to flourish (or anyone else's for that matter).

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From the perimeter Lauri will never be an advantage creator as a passer because he is not much of a threat off the dribble but it would have been nice to try to expand his game in the post this year where he would have the capability of drawing doubles and expanding his game as a passer. That is probably my only issue with how Lauri has been utilized the last 2 years is that we didn't make an effort to expand his postgame when we could afford to deal with growing pains. Let him deal with guards dropping down for the double team and getting comfortable with taking advantage of those collapses to find the open man. You can work on it in practice but there is nothing like in game reps to work on things and gain confidence.

Lauri would be an amazing Robin paired with a legit superstar. Unfortunately for us, you don't usually have the Robin on your team and then add Batman afterwards. Especially when Robin is his his late 20's and Batman, should he ever arrive, would likely be a pizza faced rookie.

I just don't see it happening. Surely there is a team out there who could convince themselves that they already have Batman though, right? And would give up everything to get him a proper running mate? That is the team we need to find.

Bawse Dawg said:

Lauri would be an amazing Robin paired with a legit superstar. Unfortunately for us, you don't usually have the Robin on your team and then add Batman afterwards. Especially when Robin is his his late 20's and Batman, should he ever arrive, would likely be a pizza faced rookie.

I just don't see it happening. Surely there is a team out there who could convince themselves that they already have Batman though, right? And would give up everything to get him a proper running mate? That is the team we need to find.

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If the Knicks strike out on Giannis/Embiid types. We could become an amazing consolation prize for them. Lauri is a perfect replacement for Randle, and wouldn't take the team from Brunson. They have assets, I think it could be a great trade partnership