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Feeling Better About This Team

If we fail in the first or second round again, everyone on the roster over the age of 30 should be moved, and serious consideration should be given to moving Rudy if we lose the same we have been losing.

Don’t care if they are lateral moves for younger players to extend our timeline (retool), or just cashing in for assets (rebuild). But if Mike and Bogey are on the team after we lose again in the first or second, I will go full on casual next year and just score watch more than I already am. Treadmill boringness.
 
If/when small ball beats us again in the playoffs, we do need to move someone but not necessarily Rudy. It's Quin that needs to go. Let's get a couple of more dynamic and taller players and see what a more flexible coach can do with the Rudy /Don combo.
Now if the Rudy /Don relationship is as bad as some are reporting move whoever gives you the best return. If it's Don that goes then Quin needs to also because he won't move away from this funnel defence scheme. If Rudy is moved maybe he'll tap into his intellect and try something new. I've often wondered if maybe he needs to try a little LSD instead of the cocaine to expand his mind . (That's a joke of course).
 
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Ferguson_Mellochill said:
I'm going through NAW's stats. He was passable for a 2nd-year player last year. His FG% was still low (42%), but his 3FG% was good enough at 35% on nearly 5 attempts per game. He was third on the Pels in scoring at 18 pts per 36 mins behind Zion and Ingram. His steals and rebounds per 36 were pretty good and on par with Lonzo Ball.

Then something happened this year and his shooting percentages just dropped 4 or 5 points across the board (other than FTs). Not sure what it was. I'm guessing that he was defended differently, especially with Zion being out of the rotation. I notice that he's really not able to shoot jumpers off balance or even off movement necessarily. He needs his feet set, squared up, and leaning into his shot. He probably needs to play off the ball and spot up in the corner, taking either open corner 3s or trying to get all the way to the rim. So if he's relied upon to be a primary scorer, he's going to struggle.

NAW was out for 6 or 7 games in late December with Covid. It seems he was playing better than he did after he returned. He led the Pels in scoring four times during the first 6 weeks of the season, but only once after he returned from the illness. Worth noting.
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Also, between his 2nd and 3rd years in the league, NAW went from coming off the bench to starting at the beginning of the season. So the quality of defense he faced would have changed as well.

Here is NAW playing against our weak-*** bench unit a couple years ago. If he's effectively the 5th option on the floor, and he gets open looks that aren't rushed, he might be able to produce.

 
Coming out of college NAW looked like a better player than Tyrese Maxey. The consensus was that NAW projected to be a good shooter and Maxey didn't really. Maxey has clearly put in the work to improve across the board. However, Maxey was younger than NAW and did have the superior FT%, so maybe that indicated his shooting potential.
 
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Ferguson_Mellochill said:
Coming out of college NAW looked like a better player than Tyrese Maxey. The consensus was that NAW projected to be a good shooter and Maxey didn't really. Maxey has clearly put in the work to improve across the board. I wonder if NAW has it in him to improve. However, Maxey was younger than NAW and did have the superior FT%, so maybe that indicated his shooting potential.
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Here is my Best Buy moment. Over the weekend I bumped into a member of the Stars who was chatting with someone I know. The Stars player was talking about how hard the Stars/Jazz offense is to grasp and understand. The Stars player played 4 years of college and his dad is a coach so the comment was interesting. I'm hoping our two new players spent the break immersing themselves in learning the offense and Quin's terminology so they can react instead of think when play resumes.
 
This is one of NAW's more encouraging games recently. Late December vs. the Blazers: 27 pts, 4 asts, 3 rebs on 10/16 shooting, 6/9 from 3pt. This is right before he went out with covid.

 
I still can't believe we couldn't find a rotation player with Joes expiring and two second round picks. Someone to come in and immediately help us in the stretch run of the regular season and in the playoffs. Of course, maybe that was never the goal...maybe the only goal was to save Ryan Smith a few million dollars.
 
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Look, the Ingles trade made sense. Joe was done anyway, and we flipped his expiring for a young guy who could be someone. And trying to phrase this delicately, the injury made the move easy for everyone but it would have had to happen anyway. Joe was really bad for us this year and the team has improved in his subtraction. He was getting a ton of minutes and other guys deserved them more at this point. It’s far from enough to make us a contender, but it did make us a little better.
 
I thought maybe this thread would be the traditional Champ Train. Not a what'r we gonna do now that we're down and out theme.

If you look at the winners lately, meaning champs over the past seasons, it's all star power not sound strategy or coaching. Just buy some weapons and let'm run. loyalite to oldsters is not the formula.
 
Final stretch of the season starts tomorrow night against our potential first round opponent, the Mavs. About 7 weeks until the playoffs start, 24 games left...14 road and 10 home, 4 back-to-backs. According to tankathon's website the Jazz have the 5th hardest strength of schedule the rest of the season. Really excited to see how we fare these last few weeks of the regular season and in the playoffs!
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
Hope this team comes out ultra focused. This is the time to flip the switch
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I am expecting a flickering light, like with a weird kid riding around wearing an exaggerated clown mask, telling them they need to play the game.
 
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