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Deron the undisputed leader, and last season's chemistry issues

BabyPeterzz

BabyPeterzz

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https://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/jazz/50515006-87/williams-team-jazz-nba.html.csp?page=1

Deron is now the unquestioned leader of the team.

Here he says there were chemistry problems last season.

So does Williams. As much as the guard relied on Boozer, their relationship was never a perfect marriage. Williams acknowledged that the team’s chemistry reached a low point last season. That was when the Jazz believed they could beat anyone. Then Utah began dancing backward.

“It wasn’t great,” Williams said. “We had stuff we were dealing with, with contract situations and things like that. I don’t really want to get into it. But the chemistry wasn’t as good as it could have been.”
Click to expand...
 
....well, everybody in town knew that Boozer was more interested in his tats and his mascara lined eyebrows than playing defense! We improved our team and cut payroll the minute he signed with the Bull's, who by the way, will be worse than last years team, which is pretty hard to be!
 
By Brian T. Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

I really don't know who this Smith guy is, but I like his style. Seems to get in-depth without resort to a lot of meaningless fluff, know what I'm sayin?
 
Williams said good NBA teams have three to four star players. But...Depth and reliability are essential. “I think we have that this year,” Williams said. “I thought we had it last year. I just think we didn’t have the heart."

Didn't have the heart, eh? I wonder who he might have had in mind? For the last couple of years Deron, when pushed, has been sayin just this: that the team wasn't tough enough.

Al, Raja, et al, aint gunna fold up like a cheap-*** tent when they go up against Kobe, Gasol, and the rest of them frontin Lakers. They done proved that. The league best git ready to be Sloaned.
 
"Focus, togetherness, job: all code words for leadership. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said Williams unquestionably has it, as do key longtime teammates such as Paul Millsap and Ronnie Price. “We’ve both been the same person since we got in here. I guess that’s why we clicked so much, because we are who we are,” Millsap said. “We don’t try to put on a front. We’re pretty real to each other.” Sloan said Williams’ authenticity is a central piece to his puzzle."

Interestin, but not really surprisin, that Sloan throws Price in with the Paperboy and Deron as havin leadership qualities. Had Matthews stayed, he probably would have been included too, even if he was only a second-year player.

On occasion, Deron actually seems to get a ref to reconsider when he objects to a call (mainly out of bounds calls, and the like), but that is rare. That is one area where the Paperboy shows more self-control and maturity than Deron. For the most part, the Paperboy has been treated by the refs like he was a perennial rookie, the "benefit of the doubt" always goin to whoever he was playin against. Even so, he rarely expresses the least bit of frustration or disagreement with the calls--he just heads to the other end of the floor with maybe a look of renewed determination on his face.

I suspect, especially with the new guidelines for techs, that Deron will be more like Millsap in that respect this year too. He was, his first couple of years, when he too seemed to get screwed by a call more often than not. Now he gets a lot of the calls, sometimes at the unfair expense of his defender(s), and there is no need (not that there ever was) to make an issue out of the occasional erroneous call aganst him.

Getting rid of Boozer as a pretender to being "co-leader" will help this team. As a whole, this year's team, including the returning players like, Fess and AK, seem much more focused and determined than they have been in (at least some) past years. All of this makes the upcoming season unusually promisin, doncha think?
 
Here's another article from today, focusin on the topic of leadership, which I aint seen posted:

"Williams has to walk a fine line between being a fierce competitor who expects and demands the best out of himself and teammates and being a team leader who inspires guys instead of alienating them by harping too much or by fuming, visibly or verbally, when things go wrong.

"Just like a coach, you've got to find that balance," former Jazz standout and current special assistant Jeff Hornacek said. "If you're yelling and screaming at guys all of the time, guys aren't going to respond to that. But if you're leading by example and then all of a sudden you get on somebody, they'll probably respond.

"I think Deron's done a good job of figuring out that balance, and not going overboard. ... Teammates are always supposed to push each other and try to make them do their best, and Deron will do that."

"Williams isn't asking to be a one-man conductor of this Jazz band, though. While talking about the importance of strong leadership on winning NBA teams, all of his examples included multiple players who could be characterized as their teams' leaders...[He] said the team has a lot of silent leaders who do more showing than speaking. Ten-year veteran Andrei Kirilenko falls into that category for his all-around play. As does Millsap.

"We've got a lot of guys that go out there and play hard," Williams said. "Paul is definitely a leader by example. He's not going to say much, but he goes out there and plays hard every night, busts his butt and gives it his all. Guys respect that and want to emulate that. [Bell] is definitely going to add another element (of leadership), just another guy that's tough and wants to win. That's what we need — guys that care about winning," Williams said. "Raja's definitely going to be a vocal leader, but also a guy who just goes out there and plays hard every night."

"Like Hayward, Bell was impressed with Williams' leadership from Day 1 of camp. He liked that the All-Star acted like a coach on the court during a time when the mostly new team was trying to sort the X's from the O's in Sloan's system. "He's trying to help everyone, and that's where it starts," Bell said. "If you have a guy at the top trying to help everybody else, it kind of filters down through the ranks."

More here: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/700075879/D-Will-is-leading-this-Utah-Jazz-ensemble.html?pg=1
 
While Boozer was a big scorer (and rebounder, sometimes at the expense of his teammates), I thought that the main ways that Boozer hurt the team was his matador defense, selfish attitude, and poor leadership. I didn't recognize that part of his damage to the team was to suffocate Deron's wish to be the definitive leader, which he should have been from year one.
 
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