Conley was a bad move, but completely disagree that it sunk any chance for the Jazz to improve. The Jazz squandered countless opportunities and refused to even acknowledge that major weaknesses were indeed weaknesses. You can improve a ton on the margins, people seem to think draft picks is the only way to improve but that is not true at all. It’s not like the Jazz were left without picks either, it was a sequence of horrible moves which included failures on all sorts of levels.
2023 Trade Rumors and Gossip Involving the Jazz
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Conley was a bad move, but completely disagree that it sunk any chance for the Jazz to improve. The Jazz squandered countless opportunities and refused to even acknowledge that major weaknesses were indeed weaknesses. You can improve a ton on the margins, people seem to think draft picks is the only way to improve but that is not true at all. It’s not like the Jazz were left without picks either, it was a sequence of horrible moves which included failures on all sorts of levels.
TheStormofWar
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Little torn about this, but if VanVleet opts into his PO, it'd probably be a one year rental. An Opt out would be he's expecting a big payday (Houston?) and I don't really seeing the Jazz ponying 25m+ per for him.
Are the Utah Jazz a possible suitor for Raptors’ star Fred VanVleet?
If Toronto Raptor's star Fred VanVleet becomes available for trade in the NBA offseason, could the Utah Jazz be possible suitors for the star?thejnotes.com
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Someone will pay him… 25M is actually lower than I think he will get. If we could get him at 4/100M you do it in a second. 4/120M scares me but you could make the salary descend and take some downside off of it.
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Was it a bad move. Cost a couple firsts but we got one back… realize it was in part because we offloaded other guys but without Conley that deal ain’t happening. 1 first and some opportunity cost for what we got ain’t bad at all imo.
TheStormofWar
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I'd rather spend that money on a younger guard honestly. Not to mention issues with timelines and the fact Ainge would rather trade away older players getting towards 30 and older (next season) than sign them in most cases.
Yep. I hated the Conley trade but what really sunk the jazz was Udoka pick and using the MLE on Favor and Gay when there were younger players on the market that made more sense. Replace Dok with Bane or McDaniels and Favors with the stretch big that we should have gone after in Bobby Portis and I think we may already have a championship right now.
I don't think there is any debating that it was a bad move. It created a mini me backcourt that made no sense with a guy that didn't fit the age range of our stars and drained our youth and a lot of future flexibility. Brogdon was the guy that always made the most sense and we were supposedly bidding with the pacers for Conley. We got Conley and they got Brogdon for a reasonable contract and future 1st. In the end though the dagger was still the Dok pick and poor use of the MLE's.
zags422
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Just looking at current top nba players and Talent: the only players that I think would put us into title contention: Jaylin Brown, Luka Doncic or Mikail Bridges. Those 3 I think are good options and the only ones that actually increase our chances at a championship. All other players, van vleet, siakim, PG3, Lillard, imo, only get us to the playoffs.
I’d almost be more interested in roster building through the draft at this point.
I’d almost be more interested in roster building through the draft at this point.
The Conley move was fine in isolation for that time. The problem wasn’t really Conley, the problem was that DL “kept the powder dry” far too long, not acknowledging the coming cap crunch, and ended up pulling the trigger on Conley when he was the only option left before that crunch. Then we went hog-wild dumping any potential tradable asset for, well, I have no clue.
TheStormofWar
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That pretty much sums it up.
In a hindsight 20/20 view it was imo, because Conley never materialized in the playoffs….but you could argue that was due to injury. That may be fair/unfair considering we traded for a an aging, injury PG so you can’t be shocked if his body didn’t hold up.
OTOH, I think it was a mistake to invest so much into pairing Mitchell with a “PG” and that is something we should have known at the time. Especially considering we had basically the ideal “PG” already on the roster to pair with Mitchell.
It wasn’t a terrible move, but I didn’t like the move when it happened (pushing some chips to the center was a good idea bet on the wrong guy). In any case, definitely not the move that caused failure from the Gobert/Mitchell Jazz. It was a string of failures that led to their demise.
