Are the Jazz Not Bad?

[HermanG]

I dont think the preseason results are indicative of anything, but the eyeball test tells me we may be a better team defensively than we were last season.

Our tanking concept sort of predicates us being a bad defensive team, as with Lauri, Sexton, Clarkson and Key there are enough flamethrowers to light up the scoreboard. Add Brice, Juzang and TH if he hits his 3 pointers at a high rate, and our offense likely wont be the thing that dooms us.

But with the amount of Lauri ISOs we have seen, if Will Hardy development lab is open all year it could come to rescue us from the jaws of victory.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I dont think the preseason results are indicative of anything, but the eyeball test tells me we may be a better team defensively than we were last season.

Our tanking concept sort of predicates us being a bad defensive team, as with Lauri, Sexton, Clarkson and Key there are enough flamethrowers to light up the scoreboard. Add Brice, Juzang and TH if he hits his 3 pointers at a high rate, and our offense likely wont be the thing that dooms us.

But with the amount of Lauri ISOs we have seen, if Will Hardy development lab is open all year it could come to rescue us from the jaws of victory.

The tanking concept relies on being in the West. If the Jazz are in the East, they are a play in contender.

I just think with Utah home court advantage it makes being very bad extremely hard.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I know Luka didn't play cuz pre-season, but that's actually the reality of Utah regular season often as well. Stars skip Utah

 

[HermanG]

The tanking concept relies on being in the West. If the Jazz are in the East, they are a play in contender.

I just think with Utah home court advantage it makes being very bad extremely hard.

The way we lose though is by bleeding points which also negates some of our best offensive games. Like last season didnt we score 149 or smth in one of our losses?

 

[HermanG]

One additional thing to keep in mind is that the young guys are 100% out of the tanking mindset. They arent interested in getting higher rated prospects who jump them in the pecking order. They are all fighting for their future in the NBA and their first big bag, as they should be.

So the whole notion of us being bad depends on them not (yet) having enough skills to do anything about it.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Any team that is confident and trying hard can win games. If we want to lose a lot, we probably have to hope for lots of early losses that break our will.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

A couple of concerns for the tank:

- Being really bad was somewhat based on Key being an extremely negative player and getting lots of minutes. He has looked like a much less negative player so far this preseason.
- Being really bad was somewhat based on having the worst defense in the NBA. Cody is a good defender, Kessler is going to get more minutes, Hendricks looks pretty good, Key looks slightly better, and Collier is actually pretty good. We might be better than anticipated.
- Being really bad was somewhat based on playing lots of young guys who are typically net negative. Cody right now is very low usage and won't impact losing too much, Collier is a floor setter who can help others get going even if he is inefficient himself, Flip looks like he's out of the rotation, Brice looks bought in to playing a role.
- Plus, Clarkson looks great so far and locked in, Juzang looks like the kind of role player that helps win games, and Collins might have found a great role as a backup big.

BUT.....

I'm not concerned because:
- Ainge and Hardy seem in sync on being bad.
- Nobody is game planning for us yet, and we still have lots of weaknesses to exploit
- Our rookies will hit walls, our second year players will hit growing pains, our morale will eventually deteriorate.
- If none of the above happen and we win games because our young guys are too good, it's probably not something to worry about.

 

[TheStormofWar]

For the record, I am perfectly fine with the Jazz not being as bad as anticipated PROVIDED our young guys are getting beaucoup minutes. If that happens, all the means to me is the we're doing what we should, which is develop, develop, develop. This stupid *** half-in/half-out thing we've been doing accomplishes nothing beyond having my active interest in the team ebb. I love the Jazz and have been a Jazz fan for 40 years now. I am more than happy to suck hard as long as we're trying to do something. But seriously, don't just play vets to win in a hopeless campaign for the 10th seed. I'd rather blow the barn doors off of someone else in a few years than have our blown off for the sake of mediocrity. Young players learn best by doing. They're going to make a LOT of mistakes. They will need to play through that so they don't do it again.

I am more than okay with that.

 

[Strutter]

Every indication so far is that the Jazz will be committing to our younger players, from media interviews to preseason lineups and minutes so far. As long as that's the case, I'm okay with just seeing where the season takes us. There's still the Western conference effect where we really only have one other bad team in the West. So the really bad teams in the East will pick up some wins against each other, at least.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Every indication so far is that the Jazz will be committing to our younger players, from media interviews to preseason lineups and minutes so far. As long as that's the case, I'm okay with just seeing where the season takes us. There's still the Western conference effect where we really only have one other bad team in the West. So the really bad teams in the East will pick up some wins against each other, at least.

Yeah, I'm not saying the Jazz will be good, but they are better than the bottom of the East and the home court advantage (altitude and teams resting stars) might make it hard to be worse than the 6th/7th best lottery odds.

Hopefully Clarkson continues this higher IQ shot hunting he has shown in the pre-season. Seems to be chucking less bad shots. Hopefully he starts making some more 3s and he becomes an attractive trade deadline addition for a contender

 

[HermanG]

Yeah, I'm not saying the Jazz will be good, but they are better than the bottom of the East and the home court advantage (altitude and teams resting stars) might make it hard to be worse than the 6th/7th best lottery odds.

Hopefully Clarkson continues this higher IQ shot hunting he has shown in the pre-season. Seems to be chucking less bad shots. Hopefully he starts making some more 3s and he becomes an attractive trade deadline addition for a contender

Problem in that is how many close games will he win for us if we hold on to him for that long?

I dont sense this team as the type of team that gets blown out all the time. I think we are gonna end up in quite a few close games (especially at home), and I dont see Hardy sitting Clarkson in the final minutes if he is having a good game.

 

[KqWIN]

Wins in the preseason don’t mean anything, and if they did, it’s not like we’re going to see the Jazz team we saw tonight for the whole year. I’m sure Hardy could scrap together a 35ish win team if the goal was to win as many games as possible. It’s not.