Championship this year. Can’t get any better than that.
How much better are the jazz?
- Thread starter Thee Idiotic Minivan K
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Handlogten's Heros
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Not sure if this has been discussed but another component of this is that some other teams got better too. Portland and Phoenix should be super solid. Rockets will be a dumpster fire by the trade deadline. OKC obviously is done.
Okay, I've been putting off responding to this because I prefer quick sarcastic comments that don't take any time to post rather than long posts, but here goes:
We are definitely better. We went very far in on defense for a couple years, then went very heavy in on offense and sacrificed a lot of depth to do so. It... didn't really work out anywhere near what we thought would even be the floor of that team. The backup 5 spot was a huge issue, and a lot of the FO boosters are now willing to recognize this because our only off-season move was to address this, so we play this up as our biggest weakness from last year (only because we 'fixed it' this off-season). We had to hold our breath for the minutes Rudy was off the floor, and there was no way to give him rest for any extended period of time with the schedule or anything. In the playoffs, we were without Bojan, which is obviously big. And the ball out the sounding horn was about an inch away from us going to the second round, which likely would have obscured, to some degree, a lot of our weaknesses and allowed us to collectively be much more optimistic if we ended up having a decent showing vs. LAC. Conley did play much better in the bubble (in terms of actually being able to hit a shot). Add in the fact that we'll have a legitimate bench this year with Clarkson + Favors who were not on the roster this time last year. The continuity factor also helps as we're really not actually integrating anyone new. These are all pretty big things and should allow us to see our team much more closely approximate what we thought last year's team was supposed to do.
But we still have a significant problem that will put some serious limits on our ceiling and may become readily apparent in the playoffs: for all the good changes from last year to this year, the one thing that remains exactly the same is the closing lineup. That hasn't changed at all. And even though being able to survive throughout the game with a better bench will help put us into better positions at the end of games, the variability in winning the games is going to come down much more to that closing lineup. Our defensive problems last year weren't just Gobert sitting, as much as we want to pretend that having Favors has now fixed that. I didn't think it would be the case, but swapping Rubio for Conley in terms of team defense hurt us quite a bit more than I thought it would. We also swapped Jae's defense with Bojan's. This is a huge issue that isn't accounted for by blaming our defensive struggles on Tony Bradley (who among all those now blaming this were quite reticent to express this kind of belief -- and expressed the exact opposite -- last season when many of us kept suggesting the names of several corpses we could sign for the minimum but were repeatedly told it was no big deal). Now, Quin may alternate some defensive and offensive possessions with different guys (subbing in/out Bojan/Conley with Favors/Royce), but there's only so far you can go with that. This won't be apparent now because we should be able to get through the regular season fine, but it's going to become much more challenging in the playoffs, and it's also going to be hard to change this around on the fly because we are creatures of habit, and we'll bring out teh lolz for those suggesting we deviate from what we did all season long.
What I'm getting at here is that it'd be really easy to sub Mike out for someone else in crunch time but we will not do that. If it were me this off-season, here's how I would have changed or improved upon what the FO did:
I would have traded Mike to Chicago for OPJ.
Could keep Clarkson at the same amount they gave him.
Could have still drafted Udoka.
Would have looked around for other ways of dumping Ed/TB that didn't require however many picks we used to do it (go ahead and bring out teh lolz of how this is impossible).
Would have signed Shaq to BAE.
Sign RHJ to minimum deal.
Sign Andre Roberson to minimum deal.
If we really felt the need to have another PG, would have signed one of the many available (Okobo, Neto) for the minimum.
Sign a minimum center, probably Udoh, especially if all y'all thought Udoka was ready.
Mitchell / Shaq / [minimum PG]
Royce / JC
Bojan / Ingles / Roberson
OPJ / RHJ / Niang
Gobert / Udoka / Udoh
You could even throw in round 3 of Korver, if you wanted.
This team's payroll is about $121M, compared to about $134M currently.
~$13M less, no repeated tax, better team.
We are definitely better. We went very far in on defense for a couple years, then went very heavy in on offense and sacrificed a lot of depth to do so. It... didn't really work out anywhere near what we thought would even be the floor of that team. The backup 5 spot was a huge issue, and a lot of the FO boosters are now willing to recognize this because our only off-season move was to address this, so we play this up as our biggest weakness from last year (only because we 'fixed it' this off-season). We had to hold our breath for the minutes Rudy was off the floor, and there was no way to give him rest for any extended period of time with the schedule or anything. In the playoffs, we were without Bojan, which is obviously big. And the ball out the sounding horn was about an inch away from us going to the second round, which likely would have obscured, to some degree, a lot of our weaknesses and allowed us to collectively be much more optimistic if we ended up having a decent showing vs. LAC. Conley did play much better in the bubble (in terms of actually being able to hit a shot). Add in the fact that we'll have a legitimate bench this year with Clarkson + Favors who were not on the roster this time last year. The continuity factor also helps as we're really not actually integrating anyone new. These are all pretty big things and should allow us to see our team much more closely approximate what we thought last year's team was supposed to do.
But we still have a significant problem that will put some serious limits on our ceiling and may become readily apparent in the playoffs: for all the good changes from last year to this year, the one thing that remains exactly the same is the closing lineup. That hasn't changed at all. And even though being able to survive throughout the game with a better bench will help put us into better positions at the end of games, the variability in winning the games is going to come down much more to that closing lineup. Our defensive problems last year weren't just Gobert sitting, as much as we want to pretend that having Favors has now fixed that. I didn't think it would be the case, but swapping Rubio for Conley in terms of team defense hurt us quite a bit more than I thought it would. We also swapped Jae's defense with Bojan's. This is a huge issue that isn't accounted for by blaming our defensive struggles on Tony Bradley (who among all those now blaming this were quite reticent to express this kind of belief -- and expressed the exact opposite -- last season when many of us kept suggesting the names of several corpses we could sign for the minimum but were repeatedly told it was no big deal). Now, Quin may alternate some defensive and offensive possessions with different guys (subbing in/out Bojan/Conley with Favors/Royce), but there's only so far you can go with that. This won't be apparent now because we should be able to get through the regular season fine, but it's going to become much more challenging in the playoffs, and it's also going to be hard to change this around on the fly because we are creatures of habit, and we'll bring out teh lolz for those suggesting we deviate from what we did all season long.
What I'm getting at here is that it'd be really easy to sub Mike out for someone else in crunch time but we will not do that. If it were me this off-season, here's how I would have changed or improved upon what the FO did:
I would have traded Mike to Chicago for OPJ.
Could keep Clarkson at the same amount they gave him.
Could have still drafted Udoka.
Would have looked around for other ways of dumping Ed/TB that didn't require however many picks we used to do it (go ahead and bring out teh lolz of how this is impossible).
Would have signed Shaq to BAE.
Sign RHJ to minimum deal.
Sign Andre Roberson to minimum deal.
If we really felt the need to have another PG, would have signed one of the many available (Okobo, Neto) for the minimum.
Sign a minimum center, probably Udoh, especially if all y'all thought Udoka was ready.
Mitchell / Shaq / [minimum PG]
Royce / JC
Bojan / Ingles / Roberson
OPJ / RHJ / Niang
Gobert / Udoka / Udoh
You could even throw in round 3 of Korver, if you wanted.
This team's payroll is about $121M, compared to about $134M currently.
~$13M less, no repeated tax, better team.
Joncolton
Well-Known Member
You brought up a bunch of good points infection - and I agree your roster is better on paper.
That being said, it's been reported the Jazz pursued the route they did because they estimate that cohesiveness is going to be more important in this COVID season - much like it was during the bubble. Teams are back to playing 4 games in 5 nights this year, and the Jazz are interested in guys who don't need to learn the playbook. That's why they are rolling the dice with Miye Oni, Favors, Juwan Morgan. They also said it's not just the xs and os that they know but the fact the Jazz medical team knows the players and how their bodies respond to things as well as having a group that will rally around each other.
With that in mind, I'd be higher on Roberson and Shaq than OPJ. Especially given the extensive injury history that all 3 of them have. But, like I said, I agree with your roster. If I were the GM that's probably exactly the kind of moves I would have made. We'll watch this season, and see who was correct us or Justin Zanik/DL.
One caveat I might add. I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of the Jazz trading Mike Conley before MLK day. I think if they do make a move, they would want to do it with enough time left for the new player/players to become integrated. The rumored Conley for Griffin + Derrick Rose is exactly the type of trade that might RAISE the Jazz ceiling, but at the same time potentially lower our floor. But, if Conley wants to get 30 ppg so he can go big into free agency and his next contract - Detroit would be just the place to do it.
That being said, it's been reported the Jazz pursued the route they did because they estimate that cohesiveness is going to be more important in this COVID season - much like it was during the bubble. Teams are back to playing 4 games in 5 nights this year, and the Jazz are interested in guys who don't need to learn the playbook. That's why they are rolling the dice with Miye Oni, Favors, Juwan Morgan. They also said it's not just the xs and os that they know but the fact the Jazz medical team knows the players and how their bodies respond to things as well as having a group that will rally around each other.
With that in mind, I'd be higher on Roberson and Shaq than OPJ. Especially given the extensive injury history that all 3 of them have. But, like I said, I agree with your roster. If I were the GM that's probably exactly the kind of moves I would have made. We'll watch this season, and see who was correct us or Justin Zanik/DL.
One caveat I might add. I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of the Jazz trading Mike Conley before MLK day. I think if they do make a move, they would want to do it with enough time left for the new player/players to become integrated. The rumored Conley for Griffin + Derrick Rose is exactly the type of trade that might RAISE the Jazz ceiling, but at the same time potentially lower our floor. But, if Conley wants to get 30 ppg so he can go big into free agency and his next contract - Detroit would be just the place to do it.
Even basketball aside, you look at a team making desperate moves to get somewhere where they, apparently, believe they can get under the tax. An OPJ for Mike deal shaved off an easy $5M. So any health concerns about OPJ would be negated by that... plus the fact that Conley missed more than a third of the season last year.
Here is another thing that nobody is talking about but may kill us: defensive rebounding in the crunch.
The common retort about the eyeball test saying that we’re bad at rebounding is the stats that show that we’re a good rebounding team. But this is too misleading. In the aggregate, we do fine over 48 minutes in terms of total rebounds. But in the crunch it’s a different story. I mentioned above that Crowder defensively became Bojan. Jae and Ricky combined for 18% TRB% while with us. Last year Conley and Bojan combined for 13%. But even this doesn’t really matter because we still struggled with this same issue then, but we’ve exacerbated it this year for the following couple of reasons:
1. Crowder wasn’t a great rebounder by any stretch of the imagination, but Bojan is worse. Same for Rubio and Conley.
2. The idea in the crunch is that Rudy has to step up and apply pressure and show force when the ball-handler moves into the lane. He is good at this, but it takes him out of rebounding position, and so if/when they miss, which is likely because of his defense, there are a lot of opportunities for the other team to grab offensive rebounds. Crowder couldn’t keep them off the boards, but Bojan is worse.
3. Bojan and Conley are worse defenders than Ricky and Jae. This forces more pressure on Rudy to contest and clean up, leading to more problems in #2 and less ability to actual close the possession without the other team scoring. The other problem is the adjustments that the rest of the league has already made on us, knowing that once Rudy comes out to contest, the rim is open season for anyone else.
When Favors plays with Gobert, it alleviates this problem, because Rudy is able to contest freely without having to worry about surrendering the rim for an alley-oop and doesn’t have to worry about not having backup on the glass. This will help us during the first 42 minutes of the game, but also won’t be that pressing because Rudy won’t have to be as aggressively contesting as he does in crunch time. Favors won’t be playing much crunch, and even so doing imposes its own challenges.
That would be one advantage of a rebounding 4 like a Kevin Love. But, more importantly, would have been a nice role for a Christian Wood.
This is a problem we will still have. It’s not an issue we’ve addressed, and it’s not really an issue that my roster above with OPJ addresses. But this is a weakness the league has increasingly exploited, and all it really takes a a 6’4” hustle guy to know that he just needs to get in there for a putback once Rudy contests in the lane.
Rudy can work all kinds of defensive miracles, but if we give up the putback then it’s all for naught and our entire defensive strategy is just flashy but ineffective. The funny thing is that 12 years ago some people here (Sloanfeld?) would argue that Boozer wasn’t a bad defender because of his defensive rebounds, and how defensive rebounds were a measure of defense because they complete the defensive possession. It really is amazing, ironic, and karma-laden, that our defensive woes currently are indeed in large part due to not being able to “complete” that defensive possession with a defensive rebound.
Boozer FTW!
The common retort about the eyeball test saying that we’re bad at rebounding is the stats that show that we’re a good rebounding team. But this is too misleading. In the aggregate, we do fine over 48 minutes in terms of total rebounds. But in the crunch it’s a different story. I mentioned above that Crowder defensively became Bojan. Jae and Ricky combined for 18% TRB% while with us. Last year Conley and Bojan combined for 13%. But even this doesn’t really matter because we still struggled with this same issue then, but we’ve exacerbated it this year for the following couple of reasons:
1. Crowder wasn’t a great rebounder by any stretch of the imagination, but Bojan is worse. Same for Rubio and Conley.
2. The idea in the crunch is that Rudy has to step up and apply pressure and show force when the ball-handler moves into the lane. He is good at this, but it takes him out of rebounding position, and so if/when they miss, which is likely because of his defense, there are a lot of opportunities for the other team to grab offensive rebounds. Crowder couldn’t keep them off the boards, but Bojan is worse.
3. Bojan and Conley are worse defenders than Ricky and Jae. This forces more pressure on Rudy to contest and clean up, leading to more problems in #2 and less ability to actual close the possession without the other team scoring. The other problem is the adjustments that the rest of the league has already made on us, knowing that once Rudy comes out to contest, the rim is open season for anyone else.
When Favors plays with Gobert, it alleviates this problem, because Rudy is able to contest freely without having to worry about surrendering the rim for an alley-oop and doesn’t have to worry about not having backup on the glass. This will help us during the first 42 minutes of the game, but also won’t be that pressing because Rudy won’t have to be as aggressively contesting as he does in crunch time. Favors won’t be playing much crunch, and even so doing imposes its own challenges.
That would be one advantage of a rebounding 4 like a Kevin Love. But, more importantly, would have been a nice role for a Christian Wood.
This is a problem we will still have. It’s not an issue we’ve addressed, and it’s not really an issue that my roster above with OPJ addresses. But this is a weakness the league has increasingly exploited, and all it really takes a a 6’4” hustle guy to know that he just needs to get in there for a putback once Rudy contests in the lane.
Rudy can work all kinds of defensive miracles, but if we give up the putback then it’s all for naught and our entire defensive strategy is just flashy but ineffective. The funny thing is that 12 years ago some people here (Sloanfeld?) would argue that Boozer wasn’t a bad defender because of his defensive rebounds, and how defensive rebounds were a measure of defense because they complete the defensive possession. It really is amazing, ironic, and karma-laden, that our defensive woes currently are indeed in large part due to not being able to “complete” that defensive possession with a defensive rebound.
Boozer FTW!
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Thee Idiotic Minivan K
Well-Known Member
Should the jazz think about trading Bogey?
No, they should be thinking about trading Conley. Bogey is on a longer deal and his game will age fine.
Clutch results are somewhat random. The Jazz have been a good defensive rebounding team for years. Ironically, the only time the good defensive rebounding transferred to the clutch was last season (7th in the clutch, 6th overall). You would think the other roster was more equipped...but that's clutch basketball. It's a small sample size where weird things can happen.
I do agree with the general premise though. Rebounding goes under the radar. The biggest reason why we stunk in the clutch was our defensive rebounding. Having Royce on the court helps a ton here. I think he needs to be in every closing lineup.
The player that needs to step up in a lot of these peripheral areas is Mitchell. Bogey, Conley, and Ingles aren't capable of giving more on the glass. Mitchell was a great rebounder and ball hawk at Louisville. His defense and grit was his main selling point as a prospect. He needs to deliver more value here especially if he's taking the easier matchups. He's got to hit the glass and create more turnovers as well.