Whiteside Is Going to Be Good

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Meh…I think Favors was legitimately awful on defense. I don’t disagree that our defense made him look worse…but he looked completely cooked whenever someone challenged him at the rim. He looked terrible physically. Could barely get off the ground or move side to side.

Yet he was posting near career highs in rebounding percentage and block percentage. He also posted a career high in DBPM.

I do agree he looked bad towards teh end of the season, especially the playoffs, but I think for most of the year he was pretty solid. He played mistake free basketball and did his job.

The Jazz defensive rating was 115 with Favors on teh floor, which would be 7th worst in the NBA. The Jazz defensive talent is lower than that when you arent accounting for Gobert or Favors.

With Whiteside you have a guy who is more capable of being impactful. That's the best thing I can say about him. The flipside is that he's also more capable of having a negative impact on both sides of the ball.

Offensively we are going to see similar problems that we saw with Ed Davis. He's going to be absolutely incapable of having a positive impact off the short roll. That's a decent amount of what the Jazz do. Even though Gobert/Favors arent exactly short roll wizards, they don't force bad things either and generally make solid decisions.

 

[gomretat]

On the poll question a while back on our best offseason pick up I voted for Whiteside and still think that will be true. I love Favs and was excited to have him back but he didn't get it done last year. If Whiteside has a good season it will be huge. I don't see a huge uptick in regular season offense between Gay and Niang (flame away) but I think Hassan could be a difference maker.

 

[KqWIN]

Yet he was posting near career highs in rebounding percentage and block percentage. He also posted a career high in DBPM.

I do agree he looked bad towards teh end of the season, especially the playoffs, but I think for most of the year he was pretty solid. He played mistake free basketball and did his job.

The Jazz defensive rating was 115 with Favors on teh floor, which would be 7th worst in the NBA. The Jazz defensive talent is lower than that when you arent accounting for Gobert or Favors.

With Whiteside you have a guy who is more capable of being impactful. That's the best thing I can say about him. The flipside is that he's also more capable of having a negative impact on both sides of the ball.

Offensively we are going to see similar problems that we saw with Ed Davis. He's going to be absolutely incapable of having a positive impact off the short roll. That's a decent amount of what the Jazz do. Even though Gobert/Favors arent exactly short roll wizards, they don't force bad things either and generally make solid decisions.

Raw rebounding and block stats =\= good defense. Neither are poor defensive metrics like DBPM that heavily rely on those things to estimate impact. If that was the case, Whiteside would be an all time defender. I am a numbers guy, but rebound/block and DBPM is definitely not the basis of strong defensive analysis. Lets be real here. There is no world where Favors was a better defender than he was two years ago with us or even last year with the Pelicans. We can agree to disagree on this point but I thought he looked absolutely cooked the whole year. Physically he looked worse than ever.


Im also down on Whitesides offense, but he is in a completely different stratosphere than Ed Davis. Davis has stone hands and can’t score around the basket. Whiteside is elite at the basket and even though floaters/push shots/post ups aren’t efficient basketball and he should cut them out, he is relatively efficient in those areas. Ed Davis was horrific/nonexistent with a defender between he and the basket.

 

[JFFR]

He’s Ed Davis with long COVID until proven otherwise. I saw someone on Twitter reporting he looked gassed at the scrimmage and wasn’t running the entire court.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Locke also talked up how good Favors was all year.... until we traded him and got Whiteside. Now Locke talks about how bad we were last year with Rudy off the floor and how Whiteside is going to help that.

Of course Whiteside is very talented and he's going to look at times. The whole book on him is that he has a lot of low IQ moments/plays. It's not like he's had bad coaches either. He played for two of the best coaches in the game, Stotts and Spoelstra.

My bold prediction is that Whiteside is not going to be good and Udoka will eventually replace him and be much better.

This is a good solid counter bold prediction.

I think Locke did the company man thing with Favs "yeah the numbers are bad but its cuz he lets Rudy play against the bench... its really not that bad..." Now he has done a bit of a 180.

I think the idea behind Whiteside is about the best we've had when thinking of backups... get someone that can do some Rudy stuff... and the price was obviously so much better. Only way I see Udoka replacing him is if there is an injury and he murders it. I don't see Whiteside being so bad he gets benched... unless he shoots too many 15 footers or something. It takes a lot for Quin to make a switch imo.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Also Favors wasnt that bad last year.

People dont realize how much of a **** show this team is on defense collectively outside of Gobert. When Whiteside was at his peak with Miami, he was on a team of committed defenders. Now he's on the Utah Jazz. Maybe something changes on Utah and dudes like Oni/Butler get legit minutes and are legit good on defense, but I think it's going to the same issues as last year regarding perimeter defense.

He was pretty good at times but you could tell when his body wasn't feeling well. If we got healthy lively Favs every night its another story. He managed it well... was still productive... but you could tell when he was a bit stiff.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

He’s Ed Davis with long COVID until proven otherwise. I saw someone on Twitter reporting he looked gassed at the scrimmage and wasn’t running the entire court.

I watched him beat Rudy down the floor a couple times... I watched him body Rudy under the rim on a ft for a rebound and layup... I think big guys always look gassed because the sport is fast and they are.... well... big.

He can catch and finish an alley oop... Ed couldn't do either. Hassan's passing and screening are going to be bad... but if he is on the floor with JC he just needs to roll hard and collect offensive rebounds.

It may not work but I think I discounted it when it happened and have talked myself into it being good. I think some will see the big numbers (he will get his numbers) and decide we don't need Rudy.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

He do the Gobert stuff better than Favs. He’ll also do the Favs stuff better than Favs. He was the best person in the scrimmage to my kinda-paying-attention eye. Another interesting thing was that Thursday brought up playing Hassan and Rudy. Then they asked Quin, and while Quin didn’t get giddy, he didn’t immediately shoot it down but talked about the “Wasatch lineup” and how it’s matchup dependent. I do think you could realistically see it against the Lakers, but you could probably also have Gay guard AD. But you could even see a Rudy / Hassan / Rudy lineup if LeBron is on the floor with AD and Dwight.

Yes to early stuff no to the two bigs stuff. Against the Lakers nah... they really shot themselves in the foot with their spacing. I'm really not that worried about them. Think I'd rather space them out with Rudy Gay than do them any favors by playing two bigs. Gay can cover AD/Dwight/or Lebron, but I'd likely put him on AD... let Bojan or Royce guard Lebron with Rudy helping off of Dwight.

I think the Lakers may have nuked their offense and defense with the offseason transactions.

 

[NAOS]

Yes to early stuff no to the two bigs stuff. Against the Lakers nah... they really shot themselves in the foot with their spacing. I'm really not that worried about them. Think I'd rather space them out with Rudy Gay than do them any favors by playing two bigs. Gay can cover AD/Dwight/or Lebron, but I'd likely put him on AD... let Bojan or Royce guard Lebron with Rudy helping off of Dwight.

I think the Lakers may have nuked their offense and defense with the offseason transactions.

The funniest moment of the offseason was when ESPN tried to sell the idea of the Lakers’ “Big 4.” Lmfaoooo.

 

[SteakNEggs]

I liked the signing but he’s 32 and on the downside of his athleticism and career.

 

[fishonjazz]

The funniest moment of the offseason was when ESPN tried to sell the idea of the Lakers’ “Big 4.” Lmfaoooo.

Who the **** are the big 4?

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

I think Whiteside will be a reliable rebounder in his area, and that's as important as anything. He has potential to score around the rim, and his size alone makes him a deterrent on defense. I'm not sure if he's a guy you can rely on to make defensive rotations and actually show up on time. If a guard gets isolated on him, I'm not that optimistic about the outcome.

Whiteside might benefit if he plays next to Rudy Gay who actually does rotate and recover. So the Jazz improve defensively by putting both Whiteside and Gay on the floor together. I think Gay needs to be the glue guy that holds our defense together.