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Kevin Pelton's take - Jazz got an A-

My letter to the editor I just sent to the Trib:

To the Editors:

Regarding Gordon Monson's recent column, "Jazz Need More Than What They Got For Enes Kanter," isn't the role of a NBA sportswriter to help their readers understand the complexities and nuances of the game and team management?

Mr. Monson paints a portrait of a stark situation where the returns for Kanter were not befitting of a #3 draft pick. But are they better than nothing? There is a strong likelihood that Kanter would have taken Utah's qualifying offer at the end of the season, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent in 2016. That's also the year that the salary cap explodes by a significant margin, meaning that the likelihood of a disgruntled Kanter staying in Salt Lake drops to just about nil.

Two years ago, Mr. Monson advocated for trading Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap instead of letting them walk in free agency, writing, "It would be better for the Jazz to trade one or both of their bigs for other assets and draft picks."

And a year ago, he wrote, "If there is no superstar in this group then why did Millsap and Jefferson walk for nothing?"

You can't have it both ways, Gordon. As your past-self argued: some assets are better than no assets.

Let's hope that, in the future, you elucidate the complexities of business in the NBA with more effort than what Kanter will give Oklahoma City on defense.
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Of the trade Pelton said of Detroit "The Pistons got the right to pay Jackson eight figures per year."


Of OKC he said "Oklahoma City has exchanged one restricted free agent for another."


.... reading those makes me feel a bit better about what we got from our trade. We got the draft picks, the cap space to potentially sign a FA this summer, and a look at the German Center.


Live to fight another day and all that.
 
Bottom line is that Kanter needed to be traded. I honestly don't think that the Jazz bettered themselves from the trade and I think that there was a better trade out there somewhere, but it's done. Hope for the best is all we can do. I think OKC came out the trade deadline champion out of this one. Overall I think this was one of the more exciting trade deadlines in recent years. The average trade deadline is usually 24 players, this one involved 37 players or close to that. Miami, OKC, Milwaukee, Detroit, Portland did a great job with there decision making IMO.
 
dalamon said:
I love it when peoples see Kanter's per minute stats, inferring that he's being restricted, and expanding his role on a team would bring THESE stats forward!!



Uhh guys, he's started for this entire season.

The reason we don't play him more is because WE ****ING BLEED POINTS for every second that he's on defense.

Teams would literally organize their offense around exploiting the Burke/Kanter P&R defense
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I have heard that we don't bleed points with kanter in the game in certain line ups. (Exum instead of Burke, etc)

According to Locke or something
 
fishonjazz said:
I have heard that we don't bleed points with kanter in the game in certain line ups. (Exum instead of Burke, etc)

According to Locke or something
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I hope ur trollin me.

Locke's "Kanter defense" tweets of last night were probably the biggest bastardization of basketball-analytics I have ever seen. Nearly unfollowed him for it (I probably still will). Complete shill.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
dalamon said:
I hope ur trollin me.

Locke's "Kanter defense" tweets of last night were probably the biggest bastardization of basketball-analytics I have ever seen. Nearly unfollowed him for it (I probably still will). Complete shill.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Eh, I have been watching every game. When exum, millsap, hayward (good perimeter defenders) and gobert are on the court with kanter the defense has been pretty good imo.
 
Just from watching games, Kanter's D hasn't been nearly as atrocious as it was early in the season. He seems to have focused a lot more on that end as the season has progressed. It's still pretty bad, though. Imo, his effectiveness is more dependent on matchups than either Favors or Gobert. Kanter can look like a beast against some teams, and then look like the worst player in the world against others. Not really a great guy to commit money to long-term.
 
Problem isn't so much Kanter's lack of defense which to be honest was gradually improving... the problem is Kanter is clearly a 3rd big demanding starter minutes and MAX salary.
 
no, his defense was still a big *** problem.





as was his ability to play 5-on-5 offense.
 
Very underrated part of this trade is getting rid of Novaks expiring contract. We got paid a second round pick to take his contract. We just unloaded him freeing up cap space next year to sign free agents. This free agency period will be valuable since the cap increase means players signed this free agency have a higher chance of being bargains later. He should be counted as net value for the Jazz by unloading him. I think the Jazz played him more the last couple day before the trade deadline and wanted him to shoot a lot to get a contending team to see value in him.
 
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