How Bad will the Jazz Defense Be This Year?

[HermanG]

The worst point is having 3 starters in the worst defender cat. I can understand for Mike as he is our best playmaker by far but as long as Vando and KO will remain starters , we won't be good.

4 of the bottom 5 are starters. This is why I liked the Collins trade. He is a positive on both ends and would have enabled us to run Kessler more, benching 2 of our bottom 3 defenders.

 

[Tremendous Upside]

Here are the updated individual defensive metrics:
View attachment 13667
- Jared Vanderbilt's numbers haven't improved much. I had hoped they would start looking better by now.
- Mike Conley's defense has been really bad since coming back from injury by the eye test and the numbers confirm it.
- Ochai and NAW's numbers are coming down to earth a little since getting more minutes, but still look pretty good.
- Lauri continues to be our only real two way player. All of our best defenders are bad offensive players.

Rudy Gay's defensive numbers continue to be absurd. You can talk about positioning, length and experience as much as you want, but the guy is also not closing out anyone AND is still getting blown by regularly. That's hard to do if you're actually giving some effort.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

At the All Star break we are the 26th rated defense in the NBA.

Defensive Rating Per Player so Far:
Rudy Gay - 104.9
THT - 110.1
Kessler - 112.6
Agbaji - 113.5
Lauri - 114.1
Olynyk - 116.5
Sexton - 116.5
Clarkson - 117.1
Fontecchio - 121.1

 

[HermanG]

At the All Star break we are the 26th rated defense in the NBA.

Defensive Rating Per Player so Far:
Rudy Gay - 104.9
THT - 110.1
Kessler - 112.6
Agbaji - 113.5
Lauri - 114.1
Olynyk - 116.5
Sexton - 116.5
Clarkson - 117.1
Fontecchio - 121.1

I think its pretty obvious our problems are in defending opposing starters. We have no great PoA defenders and decent ones dont cut it against top guards of most teams.

Kesslers numbers were way better as well when he played more backup minutes against 2nd stringers, which also supports that.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

At the All Star break we are the 26th rated defense in the NBA.

Defensive Rating Per Player so Far:
Rudy Gay - 104.9
THT - 110.1
Kessler - 112.6
Agbaji - 113.5
Lauri - 114.1
Olynyk - 116.5
Sexton - 116.5
Clarkson - 117.1
Fontecchio - 121.1

Feels about right.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

OK, so I know everybody has been on pins and needles for me to give the final update for the year. We ended the year with a 116.0 Defensive Rating which was 7th worst in the NBA. Interestingly our defensive rating stayed exactly the same pre/post all star break, but our league ranking jumped quite a bit.

Here are the final results for the players individual defensive numbers:

 

[NUMBERICA]

This side of the ball is where the Jazz can easily makeup the most ground. Improve the perimeter defense significantly and get a guy that is great at pull up threes and the Jazz are in contention. To be clear, I am not saying that’s easy, but the Jazz are setup to take a ton of swings at that this off-season in particular.

I used to hate the slow off-seasons, now I am pretty tired of how high-stakes most off-seasons in the last 5 years have been.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

This side of the ball is where the Jazz can easily makeup the most ground. Improve the perimeter defense significantly and get a guy that is great at pull up threes and the Jazz are in contention. To be clear, I am not saying that’s easy, but the Jazz are setup to take a ton of swings at that this off-season in particular.

I used to hate the slow off-seasons, now I am pretty tired of how high-stakes most off-seasons in the last 5 years have been.

Our problem throughout the season was that our best offensive players were our worst defensive players, with the exception of Lauri. Post All Star break our offense was the problem, much more so than our defense.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

A lot of th Jazz's defensive improvements will be addition by subtraction.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

OK, so I know everybody has been on pins and needles for me to give the final update for the year. We ended the year with a 116.0 Defensive Rating which was 7th worst in the NBA. Interestingly our defensive rating stayed exactly the same pre/post all star break, but our league ranking jumped quite a bit.

Here are the final results for the players individual defensive numbers:

View attachment 14306

I'm feeling semi comfortable rolling with Damian Jones as our backup center next year.

 

[jazfan23]

My only hope for the defense not being *** was for Kessler to have some kind of crazy presence for a rookie, but I dont think that happens after watching his first game.

Like all his posts , this one aged magnificently