I mean it's not true that Rudy is the best of the team and it's not true that we dated Houston because of Mitchell ... Rudy is not worth the supermax and not even the max, Davis takes 190 in 5 years, as Rudy can expect more? In attack is limited ..
It doesn't matter because they packed the paint, took the passing lanes to Rudy and dared us to shoot. They just had to leave Ariza/Gordon with Donovan and let everyone else guard Rudy.
Again, Davis was paid the maximum he could ask for, and had his paycheck capped artificially. That makes is invalid for comparisons.
Nope. Millers are billionaires and Stock and Horny aren't. They were taken advantage of. Every player should take every red cent they can get because the owners are taking every red cent they can get. How many times did Larry spend above the cap for those two? How many times did Larry sacrifice money to get them more talent? Not once. So, what did Stockton and Horny get for their loyalty? Nothing.
I haven't heard a single person say the Jazz were cheap for not giving him the supermax. The opposite actually. That Utah can't afford to give a contract out like that to a player like Rudy, who the last 5 mins of the game...can't really take it over and win it for you.
Good breakdown. So Rudy did better against Capella than I thought. I don't think Rudy shut Capella down by any means, but Rudy is also having to protect the paint.
They are both wealthy men now.
I don't know that anyone has said he shut Capela down (or that Capela even needs to be shut down), and I'm certain I've never heard someone argue that Rudy dominates offensively in the playoffs. I think the argument that Rudy isn't as valuable to us winning because he doesn't preform in the playoffs is based on limited data that's being misinterpreted. What we're seeing in the regular season is a good template for moving forward with a defensive scheme in the playoffs. However, as you alluded to with Jokic, is that there's a significant exploit and work-around for, and what the league is currently discovering: if you take Rudy away from the basket, the lane is open. There had been arguments that Rudy couldn't defend guys playing from the outside, and he's proved that he can do a pretty good job on these guys when he's afforded that opportunity (him playing against AD when Favors is also on the floor, etc.) Or when he guarded KAT this year. But our defensive strategy has been to filter stuff to the middle and let Gobert clean up the mess. So we got even worse perimeter defenders. This magnifies the issue that when Rudy has to come away from the basket to guard a big guy who shoots threes, then the paint is much more vulnerable. He can try and do both, but it leads to too much space for both a Jokic to shoot threes and too much space in the lane for a Murray. This is a personnel problem. This is why someone like Christian Wood would be a huge boon. You could either have Wood play back and allow Rudy to actual guard the big on the perimeter, or Rudy can stay back. But we don't get this option. Why? Because we have guys that are 6'5'-6'6" playing the four who don't have big/long enough bodies to guard a Jokic, a KAT, an AD, or even a Meyers Leonard. So it forces Rudy out of the paint by default because we don't have the personnel to have any other option. But then our entire system is exploited. I think it's not out of the realm of possibility that we see this and it gets blamed on Rudy.
Final year he basically only got garbage time. Not trying to defend him but just trying to make sure the data is relevant. The year before that he played much more. He was a -.6 that year.
Getting Favors back just pushed our defense up a couple of notches, so long as he stays healthy.
I don't know what games you were watching, but I agree almost totally with Infection about Ekpe. He is an outstanding defender. Not sure if he is a better rim protector than Favors, but certainly on par. When he was in games, we seldom lost leads like we did with Bradley.
If we keep the exact same setup (traditional PG with Don at SG and a traditional rim protecting C), you are right.
Or worse, ded
