Defense?

[Gameface]

I know scoring will probably suffer, but does next year's team have a shot at being a top defense?

Last year our bench was pretty horrible at scoring points but often locked down the other team's offense as well.

I love defense. I'm hoping the Jazz are a defensive powerhouse next year. Well, powerhouse might be too strong a word. I hope they play a lot of exciting defense and show us their potential on that end of the floor.

 

[[size/HUGE] fixed [/size]]

We'll see if Ty can reach his team, and enforce his defensive system. He made some good adjustments when he got the job, but for many reasons he hasn't seen the execution of those changes (players' ability and Corbin's spine are both to blame). Let's see if Favors and Kanter can stay focused and out of foul trouble. Let's Hope Gobert can give us 15 quality minutes. Let's hope Marvin plays well in a contract year.

The big X factor on defense is Burks, imo. If he makes big strides in this area, then we can be better than average. For sure.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I'll grade as I see it NEXT year (not talking about what I think it will be);

Burke - C (I see him as serviceable and pretty vanilla.. not a liability but not locking anyone down either)
Burks - B
Hayward - B-
Favors - B to maybe B+
Kanter - B to B- (His strength will help buy time to get Favors over for weakside help... and thus helping Favors' numbers.. but Kanter's unathletic side-to-side will also give up some points

I certainly don't call that an elite-level defensive team.. just maybe average to slightly above average. As they gel and mature, though, watch out!

 

[Dr. Jones]

We'll see if Ty can reach his team, and enforce his defensive system. He made some good adjustments when he got the job, but for many reasons he hasn't seen the execution of those changes (players' ability and Corbin's spine are both to blame). Let's see if Favors and Kanter can stay focused and out of foul trouble. Let's Hope Gobert can give us 15 quality minutes. Let's hope Marvin plays well in a contract year.

The big X factor on defense is Burks, imo. If he makes big strides in this area, then we can be better than average. For sure.

I feel the same way.

 

[GVC]

I'll grade as I see it NEXT year (not talking about what I think it will be);

Burke - C (I see him as serviceable and pretty vanilla.. not a liability but not locking anyone down either)
Burks - B
Hayward - B-
Favors - B to maybe B+
Kanter - B to B- (His strength will help buy time to get Favors over for weakside help... and thus helping Favors' numbers.. but Kanter's unathletic side-to-side will also give up some points

I certainly don't call that an elite-level defensive team.. just maybe average to slightly above average. As they gel and mature, though, watch out!

Not sure I agree with the individual grades, but average seems about right. This is a young team without established leaders, with a young coach, lacking physicality on the perimeter. Good defenses communicate well, play physically and with consistent effort, and help/rotate fast and appropriately. The lack of big man depth is of concern, especially if the perimeter defense fails. Favors may find himself in foul trouble early and often all season.

 

[AlaskanAssassin]

Not sure I agree with the individual grades, but average seems about right. This is a young team without established leaders, with a young coach, lacking physicality on the perimeter. Good defenses communicate well, play physically and with consistent effort, and help/rotate fast and appropriately. The lack of big man depth is of concern, especially if the perimeter defense fails. Favors may find himself in foul trouble early and often all season.

If Gobert can spell Favors for 10 minutes a night that would be great.

 

[GVC]

If Gobert can spell Favors for 10 minutes a night that would be great.

Foul trouble could limit Favors to a lot less than 38 minutes per game.

Edit: Favors averaged the 6th most fouls per minute among players who played 1000+ minutes last season. He averaged the most among players who played 1500+ minutes.

 

[Dr. Jones]

Not sure I agree with the individual grades, but average seems about right. This is a young team without established leaders, with a young coach, lacking physicality on the perimeter. Good defenses communicate well, play physically and with consistent effort, and help/rotate fast and appropriately. The lack of big man depth is of concern, especially if the perimeter defense fails. Favors may find himself in foul trouble early and often all season.

I would ask you to grade the players out of sincere curiosity.. but I also understand it's such a subjective thing. What I call defense someone else would see it differently. I think blocks are/can be overrated (i.e.) and can see the best post defender in the league having very modest blocks per game. Someone else may see that and think the same person isn't an elite defender.

There is also man defense vs. team/help defense. One guy could be an elite level team defender but on the wrong team be a subpar individual defender...

 

[BTP]

There is also man defense vs. team/help defense. One guy could be an elite level team defender but on the wrong team be a subpar individual defender...

Yeah that's pretty much why I don't like grading players with school marks on defense. It has way too many facets. The only thing I would grade defensively is effort/interest. There's 2 interesting articles that I couldn't find again but will use to make my point nevertheless.
The first I read yesterday I think on hoopsworld or DX. The statement was about a player's future position and the quintessence was that defensive capabilities and liabilities are factoring into the position more than the offensive skillset, which is more versatile to use and create mismatches regardless of position. That's something that I find fitting when evaluating Hayward. Can he defend the variety of SFs? Fast enough to close out on shooter? Strong enough to hold his stand against postup guys? And a mixture of both to alter the slashing ways to prevent high% finishes close to the rim? Similar questions can be asked towards his future on the shooting guard position...Maybe even coming off the bench as a 6th man to use his finesse to pound on opposite benches is the best capability he offers and will put him into a stronger position defensively.
The 2nd one was about advanced defensive evaluation using new camera technologies that splits the court in combs/hexagons and evaluates shots as contested and other things depending on how close the defender is.
This metric showed that Steve Novak was a very successful defender when he contested shots. Out of that statement 2 conclusions were formed. Physically Novak is no good defender(slow, not athletic etc...) but he shows effort which maximizes his success on the defensive end. Similar I value effort as the highest trait for every basketball player. You will make fans that actually understand the game over just watching top10 of the week plays. And the 2nd conclusion was that often Novak got beaten hard on defense with the attacker blowing by and the camera tech didn't add this to this sample. But with that came a mental aspect. Being renowned to be a horrible defender baited 2nd unit player into attacking him. They were less successful beating him but still forced shots playing like "yeah thats Steve white stiff Novak - easy practice shot" and they failed more often than not. Which again is a similar mental thing about the game. Being relentless. You defend no matter if you just tore your ACL, drive a wheelchair or lost your shoe. Playing hard will put you in a situation to be successful.

 

[Harcher]

What BTP said. Defense is more about commitment than skill set. And i'll add that there needs to be the discipline of the team D. Right now i'm torn. I don't WANT the Jazz to be good at D next year, but i'm thinking they might be...

 

[Stifle Tower]

I'll grade as I see it NEXT year (not talking about what I think it will be);

Burke - C (I see him as serviceable and pretty vanilla.. not a liability but not locking anyone down either)
Burks - B
Hayward - B-
Favors - B to maybe B+
Kanter - B to B- (His strength will help buy time to get Favors over for weakside help... and thus helping Favors' numbers.. but Kanter's unathletic side-to-side will also give up some points

I certainly don't call that an elite-level defensive team.. just maybe average to slightly above average. As they gel and mature, though, watch out!

Agree. It takes time to build a great defensive team. Each player has to know what the other one is going to do. Just replacing AL makes a big difference. Based on what we saw from our backup unit last year, I think you can assume we'll be MUCH better on defense. So a leap from poor to average is what I'd expect.

 

[Stifle Tower]

What BTP said. Defense is more about commitment than skill set. And i'll add that there needs to be the discipline of the team D. Right now i'm torn. I don't WANT the Jazz to be good at D next year, but i'm thinking they might be...

I want the starters to be great on both ends of the floor. They're young, so I'd be happy if they could hold their own against teams on a nightly basis. What's going to usher us into the 2014 lottery is the bench, which is downright awful. That, and no depth means any injury to one of the core players would really impact our record.