What are your "we'd have a ring IF" beliefs?

[jom2003]

Bring in Brogdon instead of Conley. I like Conley but he was not what we needed. At all. Tiny non-defensive-minded back courts rarely win anything of note. Regular season champs, playoff failures. Add a player like Brogdon instead and things would have been very different.

Brogdon is basically the second coming of George Hill. Good player but not good enough to move the needle. Also made of glass and guaranteed to miss games when we needed him the most in the playoffs just like what Hill/Ricky/Mike have done. We surely overpaid go get Conley but he wasn't the biggest problem.

To me the Bogey signing was even more problematic because he was the single biggest swing factor for us having to shift our identity from defense to offense.

Toronto literally showed us a year prior that you can win a chip with a small backcourt if you have elite wings with size/athleticism to cover your grounds. Then signing Bogey who can't really rebound or defend after acquiring a small backcourt was really a move that rubbed salt to our wound. It was a defense crippling move that got us and Rudy exposed in the playoffs over and over again. Bogey is a good player and probably still a fan favorite here in Utah. But he really wasn't the right signing for us at that time.

 

[jom2003]

Yeah, like I said, a better coach for the modern era.

Having Marc instead of Fess is a game changer for any coach. Even for Ty Corbin.

 

[Udidthizz]

Seikaly realises he could come here to pick up a ring instead of being an a**hole.
We beat Houston in the 1st round in 1995. Still believe that was our best chance to win it all over 97 & 98.

 

[Fakers Luck]

I have many, but here are two:

- DL didn't give Hayward the 5 year max and let Gordon sign the 3 year with Charlotte, which the Jazz matched. Hayward would have stayed 2 years longer to coincide with Donovan and Rudy dominance.

- I'll admit, this one's a little bit of a stretch. Drafting Tony Parker instead of Raul Lopez might have changed both the Jazz and Spurs trajectories. Not to say it would have guaranteed a championship, but it may have evened the playing field a little for the next decade.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I have many, but here are two:

- DL didn't give Hayward the 5 year max and let Gordon sign the 3 year with Charlotte, which the Jazz matched. Hayward would have stayed 2 years longer to coincide with Donovan and Rudy dominance.

- I'll admit, this one's a little bit of a stretch. Drafting Tony Parker instead of Raul Lopez might have changed both the Jazz and Spurs trajectories. Not to say it would have guaranteed a championship, but it may have evened the playing field a little for the next decade.

Those are spot on. DL or KOC didn't even need to give Hayward the max... could have done a deal but they were like $2M apart per year on an extension before Gordo became a FA. whoops.

 

[gomretat]

In 98, sweeping the Lakers in 4 games and then having a LONG wait to play the Bulls was a problem. We had too much time off and too much rust. I still think the 98 team was better than the Bulls, we just didnt play our best ball in the finals.

 

[kabenac]

#1 Stockton called Barkley in 1997 and asked him to join the team. Had that happened we'd likely have the chip in 1998.
#2 Rony Seikley - we all know this one. It would have been great having him as the starting center.

 

[Udidthizz]

#1 Stockton called Barkley in 1997 and asked him to join the team. Had that happened we'd likely have the chip in 1998.
#2 Rony Seikley - we all know this one. It would have been great having him as the starting center.

Never heard about #1 before. Man, it would have been awesome to have had Barkley on the Jazz, even in his later years. One of my favourite players and the guy that got me into the NBA and basketball in general when they showed the 93 finals here in The Netherlands.

 

[Greasy84]

Derek Harper "you go live in Utah". I think he would have put us over the top in '97.

 

[Thejazzkickazz]

What if Deloris Jordan had chosen to become a nun?

 

[fishonjazz]

Also my AK/Dwill/Boozer/Okur era what if would be "What if we fired Sloan and hired a better modern coach".

Like a coach who would have been more ahead of the 3 ball movement when we had Okur and Korver.... Even CJ Miles was wasted to an extent when he ended up being a really good career 3pt shooter.

That's a good one

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[infection]

I have many, but here are two:

- DL didn't give Hayward the 5 year max and let Gordon sign the 3 year with Charlotte, which the Jazz matched. Hayward would have stayed 2 years longer to coincide with Donovan and Rudy dominance.

- I'll admit, this one's a little bit of a stretch. Drafting Tony Parker instead of Raul Lopez might have changed both the Jazz and Spurs trajectories. Not to say it would have guaranteed a championship, but it may have evened the playing field a little for the next decade.

Those are spot on. DL or KOC didn't even need to give Hayward the max... could have done a deal but they were like $2M apart per year on an extension before Gordo became a FA. whoops.

This was the KOC special. The common word on the street by people unintentionally running interference was that you never bid against yourself and basically let the market decide. KOC did this with all free agents where he tells them to go out and find an offer and we got screwed each time. Paul Millsap’s front-loaded deal that put us into the luxury tax and then losing Wes Matthews are the two big ones that stand out. But then he’d flip to other dumb things like going into one off-season saying “Jarron Collins is the biggest priority of this off-season” and either the year before or the year after saying the exact same thing except about Matt Harpring. Just incredible that we went to great lengths to retain some guys (like protecting Collins — a guy who wouldn’t get chosen — in the expansion draft rather than our young talent) but then… I don’t know if they felt it was feeding someone’s ego or trying to keep them humble and not get too big of a head, but the approach with guys we actually needed was to play some kind of head game hardball. Though the Hayward thing was under DL, this was straight up the first page of the KOC handbook and I believe as a new GM who just got off the leash, there’s an assumption that “hey, this is how you do it because this is how we’ve always done it.”