Game Thread Oct 28, 2023 08:00PM MT: Jazz at Suns

[fishonjazz]

Why would we want to give it to them this season when we still currently lack talent? That makes zero sense. This team still needs to be focused on young talent acquisition. Preferably wings with some good size and ball skills.

Why wont we lack talent next season again?

 

[sip]

Why wont we lack talent next season again?

We may still lack talent next season but if that is the case then we are definitely looking at another top 10 pick. There is no reason to not want a top 10 pick this year though. This draft has a bunch of guys in the top 10 with serious upside.

 

[Elizah Huge]

-This was a bad THT game, I'm not going to try and balance out the THT hate with Cy gone, but it does feel a little extreme.

I mean the guy is averaging 7/4/1 as a starter shooting 26.9% from the field and 21.4% from 2.

If you’re starting ahead of a rookie who’s more talented than you and you’re not producing that’s what is going to happen. He’s flat out just playing bad. It’s like when NFL teams start an inferior QB when they have a rookie they drafted high who’s better.

 

[fishonjazz]

We may still lack talent next season but if that is the case then we are definitely looking at another top 10 pick. There is no reason to not want a top 10 pick this year though. This draft has a bunch of guys in the top 10 with serious upside.

Sure. But there is just no way to know if we will be better off conveying the pick this season or next or the year after. Maybe we want to keep our pick this year so the team makes decisions accordingly. Maybe those decisions lead to a poor record and lauri decides he wants out. maybe the poor record results in the 11 or 12 pick and it goes to OKC anyway. maybe having our pick next season (we give to OKC this season) is just what we need to trade for a star player at the deadline next season. there are so many possibilities and scenarios. No one knows what will happen.
What i do know is that we have played 3 games so far. I hated watching games 1 and 3. I really enjoyed game 2 though. Im hoping for lots more games like game 2 this year. If the team tanks then I will get behind the tank. But I would prefer to make the playoffs and have our pick next season. I really dont think us giving them the pick this season or next season will really make much difference so I prefer to just win as soon as possible.

All drafts have a bunch of guys with serious upside in them fwiw. We dont know if this draft is any more special or less than any other draft as of right now.

 

[Thee Jazz Fan]

THT lmfao. Dude stinks.

@Jason can we reinstate Cy early so he can take his THT medicine and shut the dude up once and for all lol. That would be a far greater punishment, then keeping him off Jazzfanz till the first.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

@Jason can we reinstate Cy early so he can take his THT medicine and shut the dude up once and for all lol. That would be a far greater punishment, then keeping him off Jazzfanz till the first.

I don’t feel like you remember what Cy is like… he will tell you how it’s not THT and he’s actually been great and how he needs a 100M extension.

 

[sip]

Sure. But there is just no way to know if we will be better off conveying the pick this season or next or the year after. Maybe we want to keep our pick this year so the team makes decisions accordingly. Maybe those decisions lead to a poor record and lauri decides he wants out. maybe the poor record results in the 11 or 12 pick and it goes to OKC anyway. maybe having our pick next season (we give to OKC this season) is just what we need to trade for a star player at the deadline next season. there are so many possibilities and scenarios. No one knows what will happen.
What i do know is that we have played 3 games so far. I hated watching games 1 and 3. I really enjoyed game 2 though. Im hoping for lots more games like game 2 this year. If the team tanks then I will get behind the tank. But I would prefer to make the playoffs and have our pick next season. I really dont think us giving them the pick this season or next season will really make much difference so I prefer to just win as soon as possible.

We are definitely better off conveying the pick later because we currently have a talent void. We need better high upside young talent and that is most likely coming through the draft for us. Also the best part about going full youth movement is that we actually get to the potential of our young guys. Having a better idea of what George, Ochai, Kessler, Hendricks and Sensabaugh can do will help us figure out how to tweak the roster and what type of players we should be targeting.

 

[HeatCheck]

Why wont we lack talent next season again?

My memory is foggy but do recall back before the Warriors became a juggernaut they owed a top 8 pick to some team. They were just bad enough to keep the pick to draft Barnes and Green(2nd round) in that draft. The next season the pick did convey but it was like late teens/early 20's by that point.

I think worst case scenario would be to convey a pick in the 11-12 range to OKC who already has more young talent than the Jazz. I'd rather keep the '24 pick if at all possible and convey the pick in '25 esp since Jazz already have 2 FRP's in that draft anyway. Assuming Keyonte keeps improving this team can potentially rise quickly especially if they can find a stud in the top 5 of the next draft.

Edit: IOW keep the '24 pick and then hopefully be much improved with another talent infusion to convey the pick in '25 where they already have a few other FRP's in the warchest. Do not want to convey a pick next offseason in the 11-14 range to OKC.

 

[Thee Jazz Fan]

This team has the look of a team that will miss the playoffs but be too good to keep the pick this year. We should be tanking. We need to trade JC and THT for a pickle. Trade John Collins. He’s decent but not for what we are paying him. Simply put this team is poorly constructed and not enough top talent. Yes, we may have to sacrifice a couple/few years of Lauri Markkanen, but if we don’t we will wast all of Markkanen’s time here to a point it would just be better to trade him. The jazz did basically everything I didn’t want to see happen. They should’ve traded everyone not named Kessler and Markkanen and Ochai. Conley also should’ve been traded last off-season as well we never should’ve started 10-3 last year. If not we could’ve potentially drafted a Thompson or dare I say Victor Wembanyama and still gotten Keyontae George. It could’ve been a generational franchise changing draft.

So now the jazz just need to stick their pride in their back pocket and lose every game possible. Get Hendricks and Brice Sensabaugh in the rotation and build for the future. This is where I’m at. I see no avenue to get markedly better trying to win games right now. We aren’t winning anything with Markkanen and a bunch of decent to average players. I’ve been r waiting for a true contender since the late 90’s we’ve come close a few times but because this team takes a shortcut every time during the rebuilding period we fall short of the mark. What’s the point of even having Markkanen when we have guards like THT JC and Sexton who play a lot of the same minutes. It reduces what Markkanen can do. Case in point two out of the first three games he’s failed to score 20 points because the guards are the focal point of this offense and most of the time they are winging it and playing off script just trying to score. There’s no offensive flow. This is why Key and Ochai should be starting and THT and JC should be traded and Sexton coming off the bench. We need Markkanen to be the focal point and in two of the three games he hasn’t. Yes, Ochai isn’t a ball handler, but having two or three guys that play with the ball in hand is killing us and Markkanen’s effectiveness in this offense. We don’t need Ochai to be a ball handler. Let Key do that. He seems to know where to direct the offense. We were much better with him running the show. Just think how much better the offense and Markkanen will be if Key isn’t sharing the ball handling duties with the likes of JC, THT, and Sexton out there with them. We may start to get tons of wide open threes again.

 

[Thee Jazz Fan]

I don’t feel like you remember what Cy is like… he will tell you how it’s not THT and he’s actually been great and how he needs a 100M extension.

Nah. He was pretty bad. I’d be relentless till Cy gains an eating disorder.

 

[HeatCheck]

Another guy who's been disappointing is Agbaji. Guys who can't handle and create by the time they get to the NBA seldom acquire that skill after they get there.

Yeah that's a real flaw but I do think he has Danny Green type potential which probably still isn't a starter in today's league where even bigs are expected to be able to create and handle a little bit (except on the Jazz where KO is the only big dude with any playmaking ability).

IOW the Jazz still need to draft a big, playmaking wing.

 

[fishonjazz]

We are definitely better off conveying the pick later because we currently have a talent void. We need better high upside young talent and that is most likely coming through the draft for us. Also the best part about going full youth movement is that we actually get to the potential of our young guys. Having a better idea of what George, Ochai, Kessler, Hendricks and Sensabaugh can do will help us figure out how to tweak the roster and what type of players we should be targeting.

You make very good points