Oh, I'd agree (assuming Tobias is a pipe dream). I just watched a couple of his best offensive games this year: against GS and SAC. Granted these were his best games, but he showed so much more offensively than Bjelica in their head-to-head matchup. He'd very likely help raise the team's offensive rating (despite Favors's superior TS%), maybe by quite a bit. You just can't play off him (the way you might with a less talented but equally "efficient" stretch 4) with the combination of a relatively quick trigger, high usage, and high efficiency from deep.
But he was also hunted at the end of the game on defense by GS. I'm not a great evaluator, but I didn't see anything particularly wrong with his defensive approach and it seems he has the physical skills to play decent defense and is mostly attentive. Yet when GS targeted him on the P&R at the end, they scored almost every time. That scares me.
So I'm still leaning on the side of keeping Favors if it comes down to a situation where we have to pay Mirotic basically Favors's whole salary. I'm guessing that for the Jazz it may come down to what else they can get along with Mirotic if they jettison Favors.
Nothing better than having an injured starter on a depth depleted roster decline surgery during the summer because he wants to play National team games. What could possibly go wrong?
