Obvious Moves the Jazz Should Make this Offseason

[KqWIN]

If you’re wanting to compete next year, you can keep Rudy and Donovan together. You could move Donovan for more “win now” pieces and try to compete. What you can’t do is keep Donovan, move Rudy, and expect anything more than a .500 team next year, if that.

Yup, the key to competing is Rudy. That's why the Jazz should be firm with keeping him despite Don's wishes. If Don demands out, we can trade him for a Lillard type or pivot and trade both and head straight into the rebuild. My stance has always been to keep them together as long as they willing to play together, that's the best chance the Jazz have to win.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Chances of you winning more without Rudy are slim. Even in the trade packages that I "like" for Rudy, my median outcomes for that team are around .500 even if Don is still around. With Rudy and Don, the expectation should be 55 wins. Less than that should be considered a failure, as this past season was. Keep the cornerstones, rearrange the pieces.

I agree that the first move is to put Conley, Bogdanovic, Royce and Hernangomez on the market. I'm a little more hesitant with Clarkson, but I'd listen to offers on him as well.

The scenario where the Jazz trade Rudy and bring back Capella/Okongwu and Collins should keep the Jazz in the playoffs, depending on the return from trading Conley and Bogey.

However, I think the Jazz's front office is going to change the blueprint for the team, and this may involve moving Rudy for stylistic reasons, as well as resetting the timeline. A center who can only score on rolls, lobs and dump-offs may be too limited against switching defenses.

 

[KqWIN]

I agree that the first move is to put Conley, Bogdanovic, Royce and Hernangomez on the market. I'm a little more hesitant with Clarkson, but I'd listen to offers on him as well.

The scenario where the Jazz trade Rudy and bring back Capella/Okongwu and Collins should keep the Jazz in the playoffs, depending on the return from trading Conley and Bogey.

However, I think the Jazz's front office is going to change the blueprint for the team, and this may involve moving Rudy for stylistic reasons, as well as resetting the timeline. A center who can only score on rolls, lobs and dump-offs may be too limited against switching defenses.

Out of all the potential trades, I like ATL trade the most and think it's fair in a situation where we must trade Rudy....but I think it's a stretch to say that we "should" be a playoff team. I think we're firmly in play in territory. I would certainly put the Wolves and Pelicans ahead of us. LAL, SAS, and even SAC could pass us up too. It would be a very high end outcome to place in the top 6 and may be more likely we're out of the top 10.

Everyone talks about being on the right timeline....IMO, the timeline for the Jazz is right now. If Don and Rudy aren't on this team together, the road to contention is tough. I don't care how many distant first round picks you own...it's tough to get back. The Jazz should execute on roster moves that should have already been made last summer. It was complete insanity that they sat on this roster and only added Rudy Gay to address the issues. Almost as bad as the "Miye Oni is the best defender on the team" solution after we got blasted by DEN.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I agree that the first move is to put Conley, Bogdanovic, Royce and Hernangomez on the market. I'm a little more hesitant with Clarkson, but I'd listen to offers on him as well.

The scenario where the Jazz trade Rudy and bring back Capella/Okongwu and Collins should keep the Jazz in the playoffs, depending on the return from trading Conley and Bogey.

However, I think the Jazz's front office is going to change the blueprint for the team, and this may involve moving Rudy for stylistic reasons, as well as resetting the timeline. A center who can only score on rolls, lobs and dump-offs may be too limited against switching defenses.

Watching the playoffs I just think more and more traditional bigs get marginalized in the playoffs. Its not trending back towards them. Ayton has struggled to dominate and he is more skilled than Rudy by a lot.

I think you still need a rim protector as a contender... but allocating 40M plus won't work. So does Capela give you 20 minutes of what you need there?

The issue with trading Rudy is we will drop a ton of regular season wins... I don't think Donovan is as good as the other supernova offense guys so I don't think the pivot works... So I think we are kinda stuck... which is why I kinda wish we'd just tear it down and build it much smarter. I think you could pivot and be back to a bottom west playoff team 3 season from now... if some things broke right.

 

[LogGrad98]

I think the only obvious thing that needs to be done is to operate in the best interest of the franchise, and not in the best interest in Donovan. That starts with the Gobert decision. If Don wants Gobert out, I'm telling him we're not going to get anything better than Gobert and he is your best chance to win here in UTA. There's this idea that the Jazz are working to please Don and Gobert being traded is part of that. We shouldn't cave to those demands, and we should not fear the circumstance where Don himself demands out. Build the best team regardless of if it's Don preferred team or not. If he doesn't like it, proceed with the follow up trades to rebuild or double down with a Lillard type trade.

The best path forward for the Jazz, and for Don+Rudy individually, is to carry on that partnership and build a team around them that actually makes sense. There's been a lot of drama, but I do think that as the dusk settles there's a chance everyone comes to their senses and realizes that this is the best option.

The spare pieces of Bogey, Conley, Clarkson, and O'Neale should be put in the trade market no matter direction the Jazz are going. Those guys don't fit around any version of the Jazz, whether that includes one, both, or neither of Gobert and Donovan. This should have been obvious when we got blasted by the Clippers, hopefully this additional embarrassment will finally wake up the FO.

Agreed.

Frankly I think they should float literally everyone and see what they can get back. No matter who it is, if the option makes sense you do it. If we had a clear-cut centerpiece that would be one thing, but Mitchell is so deficient in defense and Gobert so hampered on offense that there is no one clear winner, other than maybe Mitchell edging Gobert due to age, but otherwise you run both of them up the flagpole and see who salutes. No one should be clearly protected right now, as we have shown we do not have the pieces to really compete, and we need to see where the value lies.

 

[LoPo]

Watching the playoffs I just think more and more traditional bigs get marginalized in the playoffs. Its not trending back towards them. Ayton has struggled to dominate and he is more skilled than Rudy by a lot.

I think you still need a rim protector as a contender... but allocating 40M plus won't work. So does Capela give you 20 minutes of what you need there?

Big men play a role in 8-9 man playoff rotations, but can be schemed off the floor due to small ball and 5 man out lineups.

I think Capela is overpriced at half of Gobert's contract. Can definitely play a role, but can also sit much of the game like other limited big men.

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[Handlogten's Heros]

Big men play a role in 8-9 man playoff rotations, but can be schemed off the floor due to small ball and 5 man out lineups.

I think Capela is overpriced at half of Gobert's contract. Can definitely play a role, but can also sit much of the game like other limited big men.

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We've needed some variety there for a while... its one of the reasons I liked Rudy Gay but we really didn't actually try to put him there this season at all. I knew we had Whiteside and he was playing really well by time Rudy was healthy but I thought the whole reason to bring him in was to play small ball and size up if the playoffs needed it.

It would not surprise me to see Gay go somewhere else and have success. He wasn't good guarding the perimeter in season so it may never have worked... but when I watch Clarke, Kleber, JJJ, Thad Young, DFS have such success it makes me wonder why we didn't try Gay, Hernangomez, frontcourt for the playoffs.

 

[KqWIN]

Rudy Gay is worse than anything and everything than Gobert at defense. Anything you wanted to do with Gay, it would have been better with Gobert but we didn’t do that.

Maybe….Rudy Gay was a better defensive option than Whiteside, but that would have required Gay to not be completely cooked physically. He couldn’t guard a grandma this year. We did try it and it sucked.

I still can’t believe we’re thinking about Rudy Gay as a defensive solution. He was never known to be a great defender, he’s 35, if you asked a Spurs fan they would have already told you he sucked on defense, he looked completely fried….and oh yeah if Gobert can’t fix our defense how the hell is Rudy Gay going to fix it? Prime any player in the history of the NBA in place of Gobert can’t help us.

Small ball center is incredibly useless with 4 players who cannot defend on or off the ball.

 

[Cptgrnlngs22]

Out of all the potential trades, I like ATL trade the most and think it's fair in a situation where we must trade Rudy....but I think it's a stretch to say that we "should" be a playoff team. I think we're firmly in play in territory. I would certainly put the Wolves and Pelicans ahead of us. LAL, SAS, and even SAC could pass us up too. It would be a very high end outcome to place in the top 6 and may be more likely we're out of the top 10.

Everyone talks about being on the right timeline....IMO, the timeline for the Jazz is right now. If Don and Rudy aren't on this team together, the road to contention is tough. I don't care how many distant first round picks you own...it's tough to get back. The Jazz should execute on roster moves that should have already been made last summer. It was complete insanity that they sat on this roster and only added Rudy Gay to address the issues. Almost as bad as the "Miye Oni is the best defender on the team" solution after we got blasted by DEN.

Timeline was yesterday. We missed it man. Time to reset is now. This team isn’t beating phoenix.


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[LoPo]

We've needed some variety there for a while... its one of the reasons I liked Rudy Gay but we really didn't actually try to put him there this season at all. I knew we had Whiteside and he was playing really well by time Rudy was healthy but I thought the whole reason to bring him in was to play small ball and size up if the playoffs needed it.

It would not surprise me to see Gay go somewhere else and have success. He wasn't good guarding the perimeter in season so it may never have worked... but when I watch Clarke, Kleber, JJJ, Thad Young, DFS have such success it makes me wonder why we didn't try Gay, Hernangomez, frontcourt for the playoffs.

Yes. Rudy Gay not playing at all was really frustrating. Made zero sense.

Another issue with Rudy Gobert is that he's an "all in" play. You either win with how he plays or lose with how he plays. There is no diversification. Its not like we can plant him in a corner, run a slip, or have him crash the boards. He's not a wing or guard who can play another way.

Given his contract and impact on the game, Rudy isn't the type guy we can simply just sit. He's gonna play.

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[Handlogten's Heros]

Rudy Gay is worse than anything and everything than Gobert at defense. Anything you wanted to do with Gay, it would have been better with Gobert but we didn’t do that.

Maybe….Rudy Gay was a better defensive option than Whiteside, but that would have required Gay to not be completely cooked physically. He couldn’t guard a grandma this year. We did try it and it sucked.

I still can’t believe we’re thinking about Rudy Gay as a defensive solution. He was never known to be a great defender, he’s 35, if you asked a Spurs fan they would have already told you he sucked on defense, he looked completely fried….and oh yeah if Gobert can’t fix our defense how the hell is Rudy Gay going to fix it? Prime any player in the history of the NBA in place of Gobert can’t help us.

Small ball center is incredibly useless with 4 players who cannot defend on or off the ball.

Not instead of Rudy... 100% just as a Whiteside replacement. And it would have been cooked because of the other issues... but would it have been good enough on offense to be a useful tool.

And again... not saying "hey this would have worked". It is more like... hey during the regular season we didn't really try this. The most used lineup with Gay at 5 was with Donovan, JC, and Bojan on the court... like that ain't working. The other time they tried it was the game where Rudy was out and Hassan or Udoka was a late scratch and it was like the only thing we had left. Like they didn't even practice or try it.

Small ball center is not a defensive strategy... its an offensive one that hopefully can survive on defense. It likely would not work but I just look at Kleber (admittedly a much different player and one who is good at defense) and how hard he was struggling end of year and they didn't give up on him and he's been amazing. To play 30+ minutes this way you need good shooting and defending wings like the Mavs have... but for 7-8 minutes would it be better than what Whiteside gave us? Does it help get Donovan loose having more space... is he able to punish Brunson on a switch in the post? Prolly not but we didn't try it in the regular season... and weren't going to be able to put it out there in the post season.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Yes. Rudy Gay not playing at all was really frustrating. Made zero sense.

Another issue with Rudy Gobert is that he's an "all in" play. You either win with how he plays or lose with how he plays. There is no diversification. Its not like we can plant him in a corner, run a slip, or have him crash the boards. He's not a wing or guard who can play another way.

Given his contract and impact on the game, Rudy isn't the type guy we can simply just sit. He's gonna play.

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I just don't know why we didn't play around with ways to use him in season. I think Quin was afraid he'd lose Whiteside mentally, but you could look at every potential playoff matchup and see that Whiteside wasn't going to be great... and as you mentioned... you aren't benching Rudy... so why not have the 10 minutes a night he sits be something a little different? but Quin really never prepped the team for that... and it was something that one could predict would be useful if it worked.

 

[KqWIN]

Not instead of Rudy... 100% just as a Whiteside replacement. And it would have been cooked because of the other issues... but would it have been good enough on offense to be a useful tool.

And again... not saying "hey this would have worked". It is more like... hey during the regular season we didn't really try this. The most used lineup with Gay at 5 was with Donovan, JC, and Bojan on the court... like that ain't working. The other time they tried it was the game where Rudy was out and Hassan or Udoka was a late scratch and it was like the only thing we had left. Like they didn't even practice or try it.

Small ball center is not a defensive strategy... its an offensive one that hopefully can survive on defense. It likely would not work but I just look at Kleber (admittedly a much different player and one who is good at defense) and how hard he was struggling end of year and they didn't give up on him and he's been amazing. To play 30+ minutes this way you need good shooting and defending wings like the Mavs have... but for 7-8 minutes would it be better than what Whiteside gave us? Does it help get Donovan loose having more space... is he able to punish Brunson on a switch in the post? Prolly not but we didn't try it in the regular season... and weren't going to be able to put it out there in the post season.

Well you aren't wrong about Rudy Gay being different than Kleber. I don't know what to say here. To me there's no confusion why we didn't stick with Gay. He was awful on both ends of the court and that's why he didn't play. He played about the same amount of C for us this year than he did the past two seasons for the Spurs. There really wasn't much of a reason to believe it was going to work in the first play, and Gay looked worse than anyone could have imagined on an individual level. We couldn't score or defend with him at the 5. I have a lot of criticisms of Quin, but his belief in Gay is not one of them. IMO he tried Rudy Gay too much.

The real question is why we didn't play Paschall more. To me, it's not even a decision to play Rudy Gay or not because Paschall was so much better. Quin did go to Paschall a couple times, probably too little. But Rudy Gay wasn't good enough to be in the conversation for playing time.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Well you aren't wrong about Rudy Gay being different than Kleber. I don't know what to say here. To me there's no confusion why we didn't stick with Gay. He was awful on both ends of the court and that's why he didn't play. He played about the same amount of C for us this year than he did the past two seasons for the Spurs. There really wasn't much of a reason to believe it was going to work in the first play, and Gay looked worse than anyone could have imagined on an individual level. We couldn't score or defend with him at the 5. I have a lot of criticisms of Quin, but his belief in Gay is not one of them. IMO he tried Rudy Gay too much.

The real question is why we didn't play Paschall more. To me, it's not even a decision to play Rudy Gay or not because Paschall was so much better. Quin did go to Paschall a couple times, probably too little. But Rudy Gay wasn't good enough to be in the conversation for playing time.

Paschall would have been another option to consider... I just don't think Quin tried enough stuff. I think putting Gay as a regular power forward around JC and Whiteside (with Forrest sprinkled in) was not a great recipe for success. When I see Thad Young having success as a roll man or see some of these 5 out lineups that make it impossible to guard great creators I just wonder if there was more juice there. Whether it was Gay or Paschall Quin didn't have the patience to try it in a meaningful way.

I also see Zaire Williams playing well (for a young rookie) and think about time they took from vets to get him on the court and it really irks me that JB couldn't get the Forrest minutes... and that we couldn't live with a mistake or two from our 5th guard because "we were a contender".

An obvious move imo is finding a new coach... he's had so much time to motivate, experiment, and we are still at square one in so many ways.

 

[KqWIN]

Paschall would have been another option to consider... I just don't think Quin tried enough stuff. I think putting Gay as a regular power forward around JC and Whiteside (with Forrest sprinkled in) was not a great recipe for success. When I see Thad Young having success as a roll man or see some of these 5 out lineups that make it impossible to guard great creators I just wonder if there was more juice there. Whether it was Gay or Paschall Quin didn't have the patience to try it in a meaningful way.

I also see Zaire Williams playing well (for a young rookie) and think about time they took from vets to get him on the court and it really irks me that JB couldn't get the Forrest minutes... and that we couldn't live with a mistake or two from our 5th guard because "we were a contender".

An obvious move imo is finding a new coach... he's had so much time to motivate, experiment, and we are still at square one in so many ways.

When I see these other success stories you're mentioning, I'm thinking that Rudy Gay wasn't even remotely close to same level of player. Rudy Gay wasn't even close to Paschall or Juancho if we're being honest. I agree that Quin did not give Paschall enough chances....whether that was the 4 or the 5, but I had seen more than enough of Rudy Gay. Outside of his first few games he wasn't close to NBA rotation caliber on either end.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Watching the playoffs I just think more and more traditional bigs get marginalized in the playoffs. Its not trending back towards them. Ayton has struggled to dominate and he is more skilled than Rudy by a lot.

I think you still need a rim protector as a contender... but allocating 40M plus won't work. So does Capela give you 20 minutes of what you need there?

The issue with trading Rudy is we will drop a ton of regular season wins... I don't think Donovan is as good as the other supernova offense guys so I don't think the pivot works... So I think we are kinda stuck... which is why I kinda wish we'd just tear it down and build it much smarter. I think you could pivot and be back to a bottom west playoff team 3 season from now... if some things broke right.

The modern game is dominated by big wings with ball skills. Those players get in the middle of the floor and can make any play. I wouldn't say bigs are marginalized so much as big wings take over.

Bigs who are skilled scorers and who create a mismatch are still very valuable. They're just rare right now. Embiid, Jokic and Sabonis are difference-makers on offense. Gobert is not, unfortunately. I thought Gobert could eventually be close to Bogut as an interior scorer, but that isn't the case.

The ceiling for this current team is 2nd round in the West, and even that requires a favorable matchup in the 1st round. If the front office isn't satisfied with that ceiling, then they need to make big moves to rebuild. If the Jazz could replace Bogdanovic and Royce with a $30M, athletic 2-way wing that puts up 22/7/5 with 39% 3pt shooting, then great, but that's what it's going to take to improve this group. The Jazz would literally need to add someone like Jimmy Butler or Jaylen Brown, without giving up Donovan or Rudy, to upgrade their roster. If the Jazz drafted Desmond Bane, then he might actually come close, but they drafted Udoka and Elijah Hughes, so...

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

When I see these other success stories you're mentioning, I'm thinking that Rudy Gay wasn't even remotely close to same level of player. Rudy Gay wasn't even close to Paschall or Juancho if we're being honest. I agree that Quin did not give Paschall enough chances....whether that was the 4 or the 5, but I had seen more than enough of Rudy Gay. Outside of his first few games he wasn't close to NBA rotation caliber on either end.

Probably right... I guess my point is I don't know that even if we had the right guy that we would try it in a meaningful way... because I think we have guys that are maybe worth a try and its not really considered.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Like even if we had Thad Young... would Quin use him as a small ball 5 or would he play him as a pf? pretty sure i know the answer. I just don't think he believes in having a "change up" if you will.

 

[homeytennis]

Regarding Gay, there are those pesky things called statistics. Trot his out this year and compare to say Royce, Juancho, and Paschal and how do we fare? I know Quin is all knowing and God, but you can't tell me he couldn't have helped in the Mavs series.

 

[KqWIN]

Like even if we had Thad Young... would Quin use him as a small ball 5 or would he play him as a pf? pretty sure i know the answer. I just don't think he believes in having a "change up" if you will.

I love Thad and I think Quin would use him both ways. Quin went to Paschall in the playoffs despite banishing the whole year and completely misunderstanding his skillset. I think he would have changed for Thad. Thad is really freaking good.