2020 NBA trade deadline discussion

[Lakers_Slapper]

Our top 6 players is good enough to be a contender. DM, Rudy, Bogey, Mike, Royce and Joe. The +/- of rotations involving 5 of those 6 is great. And that's despite Mike, Joe and Donovan all struggling at different points. They still consistently beat opposing starting 5's.

All we need is one or two more rotation pieces. I think Davis is fine at the backup 5. Our two biggest issues are 1) Niang is a massive net minus and that is made worse by Green being so damn inconsistent, and 2) Neither Mudiay or Exum seem to be the answer at backup PG because while both bring good things to the table (Mudiay- scoring ability, Exum- Defense) both also have severe limitations.

Ideally we would add a more complete backup PG (I wish could have kept Neto) and a backup 3/4 who is more versatile than Niang and more consistent than Green.

If you're ever trying to argue that the Jazz are "currently" contenders, and later follow up with "all we need is one or two more rotation pieces" then we are not contenders my friend. We're one or two pieces away from being a contender. Contenders don't need to add, take away, pray about, wish upon a star, or change anything.

 

[Lakers_Slapper]

Jazz player +/- on the season

Bogey +71
Royce +54
Rudy +46
Mike +36 (yeah despite struggling with his shot still a +)
Donovan +14
Mudiay +4
Brantley +1 (small sample)
Kidd -1 (small sample)
Morgan -1 (small sample)
Oni -3 (small sample)
NWG -7 (small sample)
Exum -17
Bradley -19
Davis -27
Ingles -37 (skewed by playing by second unit as lineup +/- suggests)
Niang -53
Green -82

Green and Niang play 29.8 minutes per game btw

I think there are other variables we should look at, if these are actually factual stats. If Royce O'neale is a +54 but averages 6.0 PPG, 0.3 BPG, 2.6 APG, 4.7 RPG and plays 28.4 MPG, then his +54 doesn't carry close to the value of anyone else's +/- on our entire roster.
He's playing +8.4 more MPG and has only increased his stats 0.8 PPG, *no change* in BPG, 0.1 SPG, 1.1 APG, 1.2 RPG than the previous year.
How is this not a problem??

 

[Lakers_Slapper]

Kidd-Gilchrist shot form is about as ugly as you'll ever see, yes. He has had a few seasons where he shot a decent percentage from 3 on a low amount of attempts (43% on 1 3 attempt per in 15-16, 34% on 0.7 attempt per in 18-19). But he's not a shooter.

I think that's fine though. The idea in theory is that he would add athleticism, defense, rebounding, hustle in the minutes where Niang is providing nothing.

Another thing is that he's a 26 year old former #2 overall pick who has been on one bad basketball team for his entire career. He'll never be a star but maybe there's still some potential there. Maybe simply being on a good basketball team with good players would change some things.

He's been in the NBA for 8 years and has a career average of 8.9 PPG. I don't care about where he was picked in the draft, it's called a bust and he isn't the first nor will he be the last, but he is in fact one of them. Let's talk about this "bad basketball team" thing you bring up. There are some players that thrive under a different coaches system, this is not one of them. He's injured all the time and was on a team with a guy named Kemba Walker who didn't let his team stop him from thriving.

2013-2014 :43-39 ranked 7th seed and went to the playoffs. (Played 62 games because of injuries)
2014-2015 :33-49 11th seed (MKG played 55 games also because of injuries)
2015-2016 :48-34 ranked 6th seed and went to the playoffs. (He also only played 7 games that year because of injuries)
2016-2017 :36-46 11th seed (first time cracking 80 games played in his career)
2017-2018 :36-46 10th seed (MKG 74 games played)
2018-2019 :39-43 9th seed (MKG 64 games played and only started 3 games)
2019-2020 :Has only played 2 games again due to injury.

He's shot 27% from 3 throughout his career. That's on him and has nothing to do with being on a bad team. It just means that he can't make 3's.
He's averaged 1.2 assists throughout his career while also averaging a solid 25.3 MPG. It's looking to me that he is apart of the problem of that bad team that he was on instead of being apart of the solution. He's averaged only 8.9 PPG and is maybe the only player in the league that makes Royce O'neale qualified to be in a starting lineup.

One last stat.
I've spent 15 minutes putting this together on 2 scrubs. You and MKG, and those 15 minutes I will never get back.

 

[Lakers_Slapper]

what part of "efficiency means nothing without volume" do you not understand?

Brother, trust me. There's a lot this neanderthal doesn't understand. Conversing with this Ineffectual, aphasic, effeminate, coquette is nothing more than a waste of your valuable time. Nothing that you say can or will be comprehended by this rare specimen of our creator's rare mistakes. Please come back in 3,000 years when it's brain has had the time to evolve the capability of thinking thoughts. Wait an additional 1,000 years if you would like those thoughts to be intelligent.

 

[Lakers_Slapper]

BS. Shooting form and touch are important in competitive basketball. Look at the greatest shooters in basketball history: Bird, Curry, Korver, Nash, Miller, Allen, Klay -- they all have great form and touch. You think Lonzo Ball is ever going to be included among them?

You think Niang is ever going to be included among them????

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

So a couple things I’m seeing here reading the tea leaves and just listening to pods with some experts...

- Cap space isn’t a big deal next year... ****** crop of free agents. 2021 is the focus... so to me this means Dante’s contract is more movable... not necessarily seen as a big issue.
- A lot of firsts with contenders are encumbered so they can’t be moved and then others don’t have salary fodder to move in trades... like Boston. Mechanically trades will be hard to complete.
- The buyout market could get really good. Lots of guys making 15M or so on expirings may not be able to be moved... so no firsts no reason to clear space... so buyouts save the team some money at least... Iggy, Marvin Williams, are a couple candidates here to get bought out.

I think we can plug a hole or two this season but will need to be more aggressive and DL will need to let Dante go. If we really wanted to get wild Conley would likely still have a lot of value because of some of the factors listed above.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

To add to my above post... We should position ourselves to be able to use the full MLE this summer. There are not a lot of good young or marquee free agents next summer and only the bottom feeders will have cap space. So guys like Gallo, Ibaka, Gasol, Dragic, Joe Harris, etc. could likely be had for the MLE unless they get interest from a high lotto team. There are also others like Bertans and Favors that will be in that tier... so if we can somehow clear Dante's salary it would help make the budget work with those types.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Not going to raise suspicions here, but Conley is out again tonight and has been out a week now with "hamstring tightness." Maybe this is a load management move, but I'm wondering if the Jazz are holding him out for a potential trade. Just something to keep an eye on over the next week.

I could see the Jazz moving him, especially if Conley himself isn't happy with his new situation for some reason.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Not going to raise suspicions here, but Conley is out again tonight and has been out a week now with "hamstring tightness." Maybe this is a load management move, but I'm wondering if the Jazz are holding him out for a potential trade. Just something to keep an eye on over the next week.

I could see the Jazz moving him, especially if Conley himself isn't happy with his new situation for some reason.

I don’t think there is anything to this. It is not like us to be super reactive and Mike seems happy. At this point though, speculation is fair because it’s been a weird year.

It’s good for us to see what it looks like with Joe and DM as the starting backcourt. If we want to reconfigure and Mike is the piece we have to move then we will have an idea of what that group looks like.


This is likely just Jazz staff being conservative with an injury that can linger.

 

[jom2003]

Streaky shooting, defensively liable, injury prone. What's the reason that we gave up Hood and AB again? Cuz they don't get paid as much as Conley?

 

[jom2003]

To add to my above post... We should position ourselves to be able to use the full MLE this summer. There are not a lot of good young or marquee free agents next summer and only the bottom feeders will have cap space. So guys like Gallo, Ibaka, Gasol, Dragic, Joe Harris, etc. could likely be had for the MLE unless they get interest from a high lotto team. There are also others like Bertans and Favors that will be in that tier... so if we can somehow clear Dante's salary it would help make the budget work with those types.

It would take some kinda miracle to get Bertrans, but he'd be a major upgrade to our offense(or any teams offense). Any team would need an elite stretch shooter like him, which is why we kept experimenting niang(and keep failing)

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

It would take some kinda miracle to get Bertrans, but he'd be a major upgrade to our offense(or any teams offense). Any team would need an elite stretch shooter like him, which is why we kept experimenting niang(and keep failing)

I don’t think he gets more than the MLE next year... could be wrong. Wouldn’t call it a miracle. Whatever team he is on could offer him more than MLE but I doubt someone is going much higher than that.