News, rumors and buzz around the draft and free agency

[infection]

I hereby give Exum a break and my hope & positivity.

Freudian slip?

 

[str8line]

Dante soft like pampers

You mean soft like Charmin?

“You mother****ers are soft like Charmin in this ************. God damn, is this the type of **** that’s going on in these practices? Now I see why we’ve lost 20 ****ing games. We’re soft like Charmin. We’re soft like ****.”

Kobe Bryant’s outburst at today’s practice was so epic, so quotable and so viral-worthy, even the toilet paper maker had to respond.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

Freudian slip?

I saw it and allowed it to exist.

 

[LifeOnaPlate]

I don't think I have ever seen adults throw as much of a fit over Exum and his contract.

Yes, we could have used his money else where. But none of those players are the difference between a championship or not and aren't really making a big difference. Exum could bust and not do anything next year but his salary is low enough who cares. He also has the potential to be a difference maker in the playoffs like he has shown before.

Agreed. I'm really tired of all the Exum banter. Making light of his health like he's a robot or not human or something. It sucks what he's going through. He knows that. He doesn't want to be injured. And if the complaint is that his money could be going to someone better we could hypothetically say that about anyone on the team. I still believe he could become a really solid player, but if he doesn't, I can see why it was a reasonable risk to try and make it happen. Complaining about it doesn't change the circumstances.

Go look at his Instagram feed where some trolls are making fun of him and his health. Terrible.

 

[LifeOnaPlate]

I wouldn’t be so frustrated had he not likely cost us Crowder and Korver.

Korver was unusable at the end of the year. He'll be a year older. Crowder was good, but inconsistent from outside and not great at the rim. It's quite possible that, in the long run, Exum will pan out better than both of them at this stage in their careers.

 

[infection]

Korver was unusable at the end of the year. He'll be a year older. Crowder was good, but inconsistent from outside and not great at the rim. It's quite possible that, in the long run, Exum will pan out better than both of them at this stage in their careers.

It's possible but I'm not seeing it as that probable. I'd put Crowder returning to his Boston years as more probable than that, but everyone would agree it's foolish to simply wait for Jae to return to being Boston Jae. And I think what you lose with Jae's intangibles is underappreciated.

 

[idiot]

We'd have more money plus a starting spot.

I agree with you partly here. The (only) way we'd have gotten JaMychal here was both with money and a key role.

If we don't want to view him as that important of a piece because he won't close games, then fine. But realize the comparison is Exum, who isn't closing games, and is valuable as a hypothetical.

Here I think you're wrong. The real comparison is Jeff vs. JaMychal. I'm 99% certain we could never have had both, since I'm sure that for both the role was as important to the pitch as the money. Given the make-up of the rest of the team, even though they are rather different players they both would fill more or less the same role with the Jazz (and I agree with Ron that it's primarily a non-closing role)

I do think we are in need of a bigger body that can play the 4, defend, and hit the three. There will be matchups where we will need that. And, yes, times where we will have to close with that on the floor. Not often, but a lot more often than the Favors/Gobert tandem closed. We lost a lot of games last year where we could secure a defensive rebound. Aside from Gobert, we didn't have rebounders on the floor because Favors didn't close due to spacing issues. Green rebounds just as well as Favors, but connects on 40.3% from deep on just under 5 attempts per 36. He plays defense.

I concede that JaMychal would give us better rebounding than any PF we have now. He's also a very good 3-pt shooter. But I don't concede that he's overall a clearly better player or even a better fit than Jeff -- maybe marginally better, but so marginally that it's more or less a wash. They are nearly identically sized. Neither is a good defender (JaMychal in particular is consistently among the worst PFs in DRPM). Jeff is a more versatile and prolific scorer, and had a higher TS% last year. Jeff may be a bit more switchable defensively.

So the clearest aspiration I've seen from the Dante detractors is that if we just had his money available is that we could have had JaMychal and Caruso instead of Jeff and Exum. Even ignoring the fact that the likelihood of getting both would have been well less than 100% (perhaps less than 50%), I'm just as optimistic (maybe even more) going into the season with Jeff and Exum as I would have been with JaMychal and Caruso.

Call me an idiot ...

 

[infection]

I agree with you partly here. The (only) way we'd have gotten JaMychal here was both with money and a key role.



Here I think you're wrong. The real comparison is Jeff vs. JaMychal. I'm 99% certain we could never have had both, since I'm sure that for both the role was as important to the pitch as the money. Given the make-up of the rest of the team, even though they are rather different players they both would fill more or less the same role with the Jazz (and I agree with Ron that it's primarily a non-closing role)



I concede that JaMychal would give us better rebounding than any PF we have now. He's also a very good 3-pt shooter. But I don't concede that he's overall a clearly better player or even a better fit than Jeff -- maybe marginally better, but so marginally that it's more or less a wash. They are nearly identically sized. Neither is a good defender (JaMychal in particular is consistently among the worst PFs in DRPM). Jeff is a more versatile and prolific scorer, and had a higher TS% last year. Jeff may be a bit more switchable defensively.

So the clearest aspiration I've seen from the Dante detractors is that if we just had his money available is that we could have had JaMychal and Caruso instead of Jeff and Exum. Even ignoring the fact that the likelihood of getting both would have been well less than 100% (perhaps less than 50%), I'm just as optimistic (maybe even more) going into the season with Jeff and Exum as I would have been with JaMychal and Caruso.

Call me an idiot ...

Getting JaMychal Green would have been at the bottom of my list, but still something I would have preferred. I think either Marcus Morris or Aminu would have been huge additions, and that's where my beef is.

 

[LifeOnaPlate]

It's possible but I'm not seeing it as that probable. I'd put Crowder returning to his Boston years as more probable than that, but everyone would agree it's foolish to simply wait for Jae to return to being Boston Jae. And I think what you lose with Jae's intangibles is underappreciated.

I love Jae's intangibles, I love the guy as a player. He's the one player we've lost that I am sad we lost as a player, not just as a good dude.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

It's possible but I'm not seeing it as that probable. I'd put Crowder returning to his Boston years as more probable than that. And I think what you lose with Jae's intangibles is underappreciated.

I’m just not that concerned about losing Jae since we got Green. He would have been a better trade asset though because his contract is expiring.

I also think there is a chance we couldn’t convince Green to come here... he apparently turned down like 3/21 from Denver because he wanted to stay in LA. May or may not be true and I realize there were other guys we could have gotten.

At this point I hope Dante gets healthy and gives us something. If so he could be moved if something good came up... it might have to be unbelievably good though because the front office would likely be overly encouraged if Dante was healthy and contributing.
At that point we can also see how Bojan, Green, Royce, Niang are covering the PF minutes and if there are issues.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Getting JaMychal Green would have been at the bottom of my list, but still something I would have preferred. I think either Marcus Morris or Aminu would have been huge additions, and that's where my beef is.

Guys in that tier of player do become available during the season... we can be opportunistic around the deadline if a target becomes available.

Hell... Orlando may end up with some buyers remorse since they already have athletic forwards with questionable shooting on the roster.

We can take a wait and see approach at this point and it will give Dante a chance to recover some trade value.

 

[NAOS]

Guys in that tier of player do become available during the season... we can be opportunistic around the deadline if a target becomes available.

Hell... Orlando may end up with some buyers remorse since they already have athletic forwards with questionable shooting on the roster.

We can take a wait and see approach at this point and it will give Dante a chance to recover some trade value.

Not only this, but it'll give us a chance to evaluate how the pieces are coming together before committing to another piece. I think that's prudent. People around here are impatient as ****.