I like when someone says correlation is not causation then points out a guy who has been playing poorly has a positive +- when he plays with our other best players. Not tryin to bust ya chops but Conley has been bad and the starting lineup is a ton better when you sub joe for Mike.
I’m close to calling it on mike... there’s a laundry list of things we give him as excuses or we point to things that say he’s actually been fine. He’s been **** compared to last year and compared to what we thought we’d get... everyone is like “he moved and that is hard so it makes people miss shots” but JC and Bojan are alright... he needs to play better soon and if not then let’s stop kidding ourselves.
No more “but he’s mike Conley” stuff... take the name off the stats and we’d be wondering if this scrub is an nba player. Play better or I hope to hell the front office finds a trade for something that works.
I’m done with this narrative too. Gasol wasn’t there last year when Mike was going ham. He’s going against bench guys now... he’s getting good looks and isn’t making them.He's underrated his whole career. It's not changing now. It is a little harder for him without a proper big for the pick and roll/pop game but he'll figure it out. He's a smart player.
His play might be underwhelming ( it's obvious he is struggling) but he is not the main reason we either win or lose. Thats clearly my point. People use stats to show we lose when plays (I point other stats that show it's a wash). When you dig deeper at the reasons we lose each of those games, you find more glaring holes: lack of perimeter defense, poor rim protection from backup C, silly turnovers/poor execution, lack of bench production (early in the season), etc.
And the schedule was a piece of cake when Conley didn't play. That skew the numbers. So my point stands. He is playing poorly but as I said, correlation is not causation.
This is fair... Bradley and Niang are bigger holes than Mike... he was supposed to be the reason we win more though and instead it’s “hey he’s not the main problem”.
It just sucks. We had a lot of options this offseason and many would have worked out better than this. I would actively be trying to pivot at this point.
It sucks indeed.
Not sure what other options were available though (realistically). Tobias was overpaid (Bojan is better for what he gets), DLo is meh, Kemba is amazing but probably we were not on his list. Other rumored players were Niko and Portis. The thing is: had we acquired someone in that list in free agency, then Bojan would not be here. I have no idea what other trade possibilities were available (and we will never know)
Please stop with the ******** assertion that Bogie specifically said he would never come there without Conley on the roster. That's already been debunked. There is no way to say he wouldn't have come with "anyone else on that list".It sucks indeed.
Not sure what other options were available though (realistically). Tobias was overpaid (Bojan is better for what he gets), DLo is meh, Kemba is amazing but probably we were not on his list. Other rumored players were Niko and Portis. The thing is: had we acquired someone in that list in free agency, then Bojan would not be here. I have no idea what other trade possibilities were available (and we will never know)
Some of that is difference in strength of schedule but ya, Conley has sucked pretty bad for the jazzJazz are now 12-11 when Mike plays > 20 mins. Jazz are 20-4 when he plays < 20 / doesn’t play.
This is true. It's also true that Conley has sucked for the jazz.Correlation doesn't equal causation. Mike playing over 20min coincides with our brutal part of the schedule and our bench being non-existent. As Locke pointed out, Conley had a positive +/- as a starter. Him not playing overlaps with one of the easiest schedules in the league (playing only one team over .500). And now we are playing big teams again, which is exposing some weaknesses but everyone is quick to point at Conley as the culprit.
If you look closely, our perimeter defense is at fault: Ingles, Royce and Bojan has been unable to defend big scoring threats. Even Donovan has been average at that end.