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Jazz are mediocre and on track to remain mediocre unless they make good moves

Ferguson_Mellochill

Ferguson_Mellochill

Well-Known Member
2019 Prediction Contest Winner
Right now, the future of the Jazz is really in question. The team is obviously somewhere in the middle of the rebuilding process, but in terms of becoming a team that can get past the 2nd round of the playoffs, or even make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs, there are some doubts and some holes that need to be overcome. I know we talk about this all the time, but here are a few observations I have:

* Mo Williams is not really a PG capable of running a contending team. He is more of a combo guard who could help run a two-guard front like Dallas used with Jason Kidd and Jason Terry during their championship run, but he needs a strong backcourt running mate to be effective, and he doesn't have one right now. He got completely disrupted by Mike Conley tonight. Maybe he was tired, but still. If KOC genuinely wants Mo to stay here until he retires, it means KOC's standards aren't very high.

* Marvin Williams is not really an impact player. I guess we knew this already, but aside from his stable defense, he's not really a reliable contributor. Whether he stays with the team moving forward is neither here nor there.

* Randy Foye is a journey-man combo guard who should come off the bench and help spread the floor. He's not really more than that. Whether he stays with the team is neither here nor there.

* Our most promising young player is Enes Kanter. His size, athleticism, motor and IQ actually give him the most upside on the team right now. He plays with a lot of confidence and efficiency, and he's only 20 years old. He defends, rebounds, runs the floor, and can score inside or out to 15 feet against good defensive players. He still jams himself under the rim and doesn't handle double teams well, but he looks like a player we could build our offense around, given his potential to create a mismatch at the PF spot with his size and power. As soon as he learns to pass and hit a turn-around jumper, he's going to be a complete player. He has real All-Star potential, and I think he's likely to become the face of the franchise.

* Derrick Favors has nice size and athleticism, but he doesn't seem to have the coordination, court awareness or IQ at this stage to be a go-to offensive player. He will probably be primarily a defensive specialist who is a third option on offense, something like a Jermaine O'Neal, or for those of you old enough to remember, think a young Elden Campbell.

* Gordon Hayward is a nice role player and facilitator. If he hunkers down on defense, he can be a poor man's Bobby Jones. Offensively, I think he wants to be Dan Maejrle. His passing is an asset. He's a rotation player and maybe a starter. He's not Hornacek or Manu though. Those guys could shoot reliably.

* Jefferson will probably be traded or will leave in free agency. There's been no talk of extending him. At all.

* Millsap will probably be traded or will leave in free agency to be somebody's David West for 4 years and $40 - $45 million.

* Alec Burks: Does this guy even exist? Who knows where his game is at?


What we need:

* A PG who can get our bigs the ball in a position to score without asking Gordon Hayward for help. I'm not sure if Brandon Jennings is that guy, but if I thought he were, I'd offer Paul Millsap or try to take him back in a package for Al Jefferson. Maybe we also try to draft CJ McCollum.

* A legit, athletic scoring wing, preferably a shooting guard. It would sure be great if we could draft Archie Goodwin, but that seems like a long shot unless we trade out a vet or two and become willing to slip in the standings and draft in the top 8 range.

* Another dynamic PF/C who can complete a 3-man rotation with Favors and Kanter. Someone like a younger Nene.


The team should (hopefully) look very different next year.
 
Catchall said:
Right now, the future of the Jazz is really in question. The team is obviously somewhere in the middle of the rebuilding process, but in terms of becoming a team that can get past the 2nd round of the playoffs, or even make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs, there are some doubts and some holes that need to be overcome. I know we talk about this all the time, but here are a few observations I have:

* Mo Williams is not really a PG capable of running a contending team. He is more of a combo guard who could help run a two-guard front like Dallas used with Jason Kidd and Jason Terry during their championship run, but he needs a strong backcourt running mate to be effective, and he doesn't have one right now. He got completely disrupted by Mike Conley tonight. Maybe he was tired, but still. If KOC genuinely wants Mo to stay here until he retires, it means KOC's standards aren't very high.

* Marvin Williams is not really an impact player. I guess we knew this already, but aside from his stable defense, he's not really a reliable contributor. Whether he stays with the team moving forward is neither here nor there.

* Randy Foye is a journey-man combo guard who should come off the bench and help spread the floor. He's not really more than that. Whether he stays with the team is neither here nor there.

* Our most promising young player is Enes Kanter. His size, athleticism, motor and IQ actually give him the most upside on the team right now. He plays with a lot of confidence and efficiency, and he's only 20 years old. He defends, rebounds, runs the floor, and can score inside or out to 15 feet against good defensive players. He still jams himself under the rim and doesn't handle double teams well, but he looks like a player we could build our offense around, given his potential to create a mismatch at the PF spot with his size and power. As soon as he learns to pass and hit a turn-around jumper, he's going to be a complete player. He has real All-Star potential, and I think he's likely to become the face of the franchise.

* Derrick Favors has nice size and athleticism, but he doesn't seem to have the coordination, court awareness or IQ at this stage to be a go-to offensive player. He will probably be primarily a defensive specialist who is a third option on offense, something like a Jermaine O'Neal, or for those of you old enough to remember, think a young Elden Campbell.

* Gordon Hayward is a nice role player and facilitator. If he hunkers down on defense, he can be a poor man's Bobby Jones. Offensively, I think he wants to be Dan Maejrle. His passing is an asset. He's a rotation player and maybe a starter. He's not Hornacek or Manu though. Those guys could shoot reliably.

* Jefferson will probably be traded or will leave in free agency. There's been no talk of extending him. At all.

* Millsap will probably be traded or will leave in free agency to be somebody's David West for 4 years and $40 - $45 million.

* Alec Burks: Does this guy even exist? Who knows where his game is at?


What we need:

* A PG who can get our bigs the ball in a position to score without asking Gordon Hayward for help. I'm not sure if Brandon Jennings is that guy, but if I thought he were, I'd offer Paul Millsap or try to take him back in a package for Al Jefferson. Maybe we also try to draft CJ McCollum.

* A legit, athletic scoring wing, preferably a shooting guard. It would sure be great if we could draft Archie Goodwin, but that seems like a long shot unless we trade out a vet or two and become willing to slip in the standings and draft in the top 8 range.

* Another dynamic PF/C who can complete a 3-man rotation with Favors and Kanter. Someone like a younger Nene.


The team should (hopefully) look very different next year.
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Nice job. Unfortunately your post makes too much sense so it will not happen. The Jazz will find one year rent-a-vets to come in play over developing our young guys. These young guys will either leave or they will not develop into anything but rent-a-vet type of a career. Then the Jazz will overpay for players who are average to slightly good. Right now, I am resigned to the fact that Utah will be a mid playoff team for years.
 
Catchall said:
Right now, the future of the Jazz is really in question. The team is obviously somewhere in the middle of the rebuilding process, but in terms of becoming a team that can get past the 2nd round of the playoffs, or even make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs, there are some doubts and some holes that need to be overcome. I know we talk about this all the time, but here are a few observations I have:

* Mo Williams is not really a PG capable of running a contending team. He is more of a combo guard who could help run a two-guard front like Dallas used with Jason Kidd and Jason Terry during their championship run, but he needs a strong backcourt running mate to be effective, and he doesn't have one right now. He got completely disrupted by Mike Conley tonight. Maybe he was tired, but still. If KOC genuinely wants Mo to stay here until he retires, it means KOC's standards aren't very high.

* Marvin Williams is not really an impact player. I guess we knew this already, but aside from his stable defense, he's not really a reliable contributor. Whether he stays with the team moving forward is neither here nor there.

* Randy Foye is a journey-man combo guard who should come off the bench and help spread the floor. He's not really more than that. Whether he stays with the team is neither here nor there.

* Our most promising young player is Enes Kanter. His size, athleticism, motor and IQ actually give him the most upside on the team right now. He plays with a lot of confidence and efficiency, and he's only 20 years old. He defends, rebounds, runs the floor, and can score inside or out to 15 feet against good defensive players. He still jams himself under the rim and doesn't handle double teams well, but he looks like a player we could build our offense around, given his potential to create a mismatch at the PF spot with his size and power. As soon as he learns to pass and hit a turn-around jumper, he's going to be a complete player. He has real All-Star potential, and I think he's likely to become the face of the franchise.

* Derrick Favors has nice size and athleticism, but he doesn't seem to have the coordination, court awareness or IQ at this stage to be a go-to offensive player. He will probably be primarily a defensive specialist who is a third option on offense, something like a Jermaine O'Neal, or for those of you old enough to remember, think a young Elden Campbell.

* Gordon Hayward is a nice role player and facilitator. If he hunkers down on defense, he can be a poor man's Bobby Jones. Offensively, I think he wants to be Dan Maejrle. His passing is an asset. He's a rotation player and maybe a starter. He's not Hornacek or Manu though. Those guys could shoot reliably.

* Jefferson will probably be traded or will leave in free agency. There's been no talk of extending him. At all.

* Millsap will probably be traded or will leave in free agency to be somebody's David West for 4 years and $40 - $45 million.

* Alec Burks: Does this guy even exist? Who knows where his game is at?


What we need:

* A PG who can get our bigs the ball in a position to score without asking Gordon Hayward for help. I'm not sure if Brandon Jennings is that guy, but if I thought he were, I'd offer Paul Millsap or try to take him back in a package for Al Jefferson. Maybe we also try to draft CJ McCollum.

* A legit, athletic scoring wing, preferably a shooting guard. It would sure be great if we could draft Archie Goodwin, but that seems like a long shot unless we trade out a vet or two and become willing to slip in the standings and draft in the top 8 range.

* Another dynamic PF/C who can complete a 3-man rotation with Favors and Kanter. Someone like a younger Nene.


The team should (hopefully) look very different next year.
Click to expand...

Nice post.
Only thing i would say is that we might already have a legit athletic scoring wing that is a shooting guard.... i really think we are screwing up on the treatment and development of alec burks.
 
I think the Love Burks is shown is a little out of hand. He looks like a decent prospect and should be playing. But is he really a better option than Carrolle? I don't think so right now. Is he a better option than Foye? Maybe going forward but with his lack of an outside shot probably does not fit with the other players on the team as well as Foye. Don't get me wrong he should be playing some. But not more than the 2 players seemingly in front of him.

I wish he had shown a willingness and ability to pass so he could see minutes over Watson or Tinsley in a backcourt with Hayward. But he has not so his minutes are hard to come by.
 
Catchall said:
Right now, the future of the Jazz is really in question. The team is obviously somewhere in the middle of the rebuilding process,
Click to expand...

Nice post. I pulled out the part above because I do not think the coach and maybe management agrees with you. I am pretty sure the coach thinks he has the guys that can challenge anyone. He will point to our beating the Spurs to prove it. If we were "obviously rebuilding", would Kanter and Favors get scrub minutes? Would Burks ride pine? Would Hayward get benched when he misses 5 shots? Would the offense revolve endlessly around a veteran black hole?
 
gregbroncs said:
I think the Love Burks is shown is a little out of hand. He looks like a decent prospect and should be playing. But is he really a better option than Carrolle? I don't think so right now. Is he a better option than Foye? Maybe going forward but with his lack of an outside shot probably does not fit with the other players on the team as well as Foye. Don't get me wrong he should be playing some. But not more than the 2 players seemingly in front of him.

I wish he had shown a willingness and ability to pass so he could see minutes over Watson or Tinsley in a backcourt with Hayward. But he has not so his minutes are hard to come by.
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I don't think he should play more than Foye but Foye is clearly playing more than he should. Cut some of those minutes and give them to Burks. At least he showed he improved his shooting in pre-season.
 
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I wouldn't ever worry about the PG spot at this point, nor hold my breath. We already have some obvious decisions well within reach by committing to getting minutes to our developing front court but we refuse. If we can't act on things that are already in our hand there's no way we could ever advance to something that even approaches a hypothetical realm. I didn't mind the Marvin trade, but I didn't quite see the point of it given his contract had an extra year that Harris' didn't. I didn't mind the Foye signing, but honestly didn't see the point in it. The same can be said for last year's Howard signing. Did that yield us more than our status quo, in either short term or long term? I have no idea what we're doing with Burks. He wasn't my guy in the draft and I didn't think he fit in as well. My expectations aren't very high, but despite that I can't see any justification for the moves we've made and the lack of playing time we've given him. There are only two possibilities: 1. He's a good player and we're playing journmen (who are really just holding down the fort and not having much an impact for good or ill) above him or 2. He's not that good and apparently we screwed the pooch with one of our lottery picks two years ago. Others may argue for option 3. This is part of a plan where Corbin/management know best and they're getting the most out of their guys by the way they've structured things. Clearly this idea could only be induced by snorting blow out of the back of someone's ***.
 
I think the jazz tend to be slow and conservative in how they bring young players along, both in terms of how many minutes they get and in terms of what they're allowed to do out on the floor. There must be something the coaches want Burks to do out on the floor that he's not doing. The organization has nothing to gain by playing Foye close to 30 minutes per night.

I think the Jazz want to put a fairly competitive product out on the floor every year--a team that can challenge the top teams in the league, have a chance to win more than half their games, and make the playoffs. That seems to be the Jazz's brand. I think they choose veteran FAs to fill in the gaps every year because they want to be more competitive and give fans the belief that the team can win and be fun to root for. They're looking for players that can fill in the holes and that they can sell to the fans. That's where guys like Marvin Williams and Randy Foye come into play. Overall, those are good signings. They didn't cost much at least.

The thing is, after this year, about half the team is going to leave. There's been no talk of re-signing Foye or Jefferson. Millsap is obviously on the bubble. Mo also expires this year doesn't he?
 
Catchall said:
I think the jazz tend to be slow and conservative in how they bring young players along, both in terms of how many minutes they get and in terms of what they're allowed to do out on the floor. There must be something the coaches want Burks to do out on the floor that he's not doing. The organization has nothing to gain by playing Foye close to 30 minutes per night.

I think the Jazz want to put a fairly competitive product out on the floor every year--a team that can challenge the top teams in the league, have a chance to win more than half their games, and make the playoffs. That seems to be the Jazz's brand. I think they choose veteran FAs to fill in the gaps every year because they want to be more competitive and give fans the belief that the team can win and be fun to root for. They're looking for players that can fill in the holes and that they can sell to the fans. That's where guys like Marvin Williams and Randy Foye come into play. Overall, those are good signings. They didn't cost much at least.

The thing is, after this year, about half the team is going to leave. There's been no talk of re-signing Foye or Jefferson. Millsap is obviously on the bubble. Mo also expires this year doesn't he?
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Yes. Along with Carroll, Tinsley, Watson, and literally everyone on the team outside of The Four, Evans, and Marv if he opts in.

Also, your post is unbelievably depressing and I've been trying to convince myself for many years that this team's only true goal is a championship and I've seen little evidence of that. The treatment of Randy Foye by this organization is the lynchpin piece of evidence that this team's first priority is not a championship.
 
Catchall said:
What we need:

* A PG who can get our bigs the ball in a position to score without asking Gordon Hayward for help. I'm not sure if Brandon Jennings is that guy, but if I thought he were, I'd offer Paul Millsap or try to take him back in a package for Al Jefferson. Maybe we also try to draft CJ McCollum.
Click to expand...

calderon for sapman. done.
 
The UTAH JAZZ, where a "winning culture" somehow gets in the way of "championship vision".
 
NUMBERICA said:
Burks has a completely different skill set than Carroll. Carroll's ceiling is being a nice role player.
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And another thing.... Carroll is a small forward, Burks is a shooting guard.
 
NAOS said:
The UTAH JAZZ, where a "winning culture" somehow gets in the way of "championship vision".
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Well said. But if they really want to act in the direction of "winning culture", they would give more chance to young core. Cause its obvious they would already do much better than this "win now" vet squad.
 
You guys are in denial. The Jazz have no chances to win a championship. You need a superstar (or two) to do it: LeBron, Kobe, Dirk, Shaq, Duncan. It is very hard to get a superstar and we have absolutely nobody on our roster who has any chance to become one. The Jazz are doing what they could by building a team that can reliably get to the first or second round, which is not easy - many NBA franchises would die to achieve the level of the 2007-2009 Jazz teams.
 
doubledribble said:
You guys are in denial. The Jazz have no chances to win a championship. You need a superstar (or two) to do it: LeBron, Kobe, Dirk, Shaq, Duncan. It is very hard to get a superstar and we have absolutely nobody on our roster who has any chance to become one. The Jazz are doing what they could by building a team that can reliably get to the first or second round, which is not easy - many NBA franchises would die to achieve the level of the 2007-2009 Jazz teams.
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All of those players you mentioned were drafted at some point.... the key is that once you draft a superstar, next thing you do is play them alot.

If the jazz drafted durant, he would have to wait a couple years behind josh howard, or marvin williams or someone like that before getting to play.
 
Kanter + Favors, if both continue to develop, could become a contender-level front court, on par with Gasol and Bynum.
Hayward is a nice complementary player and could still improve his shooting.
The Jazz need a solid PG and a stellar scoring wing.

I would be willing to trade out Jefferson, Millsap and even another player for low-maintenance players and a pick. Then play the young guys, slip in the standings, and go after a player we want in the lottery. I wouldn't call it "tanking" per se, just trading out expiring players for picks and role players.
 
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Toronto and Philadelphia are becoming teams in duress. That should provide favorable trading opportunities. Same with the Lakers, it's just that they don't have any assets worth mentioning.
 
I think I heard Spence Checkets say on the radio that the Jazz big plan is to improve within. They are counting on the youth they drafted improving to the point where they would be a contender. If they can't improve that much, we could experience years of mediocrity. The big problem of relying so much on the improvement of the drafties is that they will probably leave when their deals are up. Who would want to stay in a place that prefers playing undeserving veterans. I think the Jazz are content with being in the middle of the pack.
 
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