Off-Season Rumblings

[Handlogten's Heros]

I feel like if we keep him and do good you’ll say see I only wanted to trade him for a godfather offer anyways!!! If we do trade him but not for a godfather offer you’ll say see tanking was the right choice!!!

this is like when my wife is mad at me for something I did in her dream... why just make up scenarios and fill in what you think I will say. I'm not that concerned with having my takes be right or wrong. I've been pretty consistent in my thinking... also you think DA gonna trade him for less than a monster offer?

Define good... like if we make an Ingram trade and end up as a playoff team (like actually make the playoffs) I will admit it worked better than I thought but also think we limited our ultimate ceiling to get smacked in the face in the playoffs. I will piss and moan at draft time when we don't have a lotto pick in a stacked draft.

I'm just not in to chasing the play in and am team tank... and I'm open to multiple ways of getting to the tank.

 

[sip]

Me personally I thought coach was part of the tank plan and wouldn't play those vets much. Boy was I wrong. I thought the young guys would get the bulk of the minutes and the vets would ride pine. I should have learned from the previous tank year (ty corbin year)

The problem is that if you play inferior players over better players it is easy to turn a situation toxic which isn't good for any of the players. That's why I'm a big believer in thinning the herd when rebuilding so the coach is forced into playing the guys you want to develop.

 

[Shad]

Come on Thunder! Cason + 4 picks!

 

[Elizah Huge]

this is like when my wife is mad at me for something I did in her dream... why just make up scenarios and fill in what you think I will say. I'm not that concerned with having my takes be right or wrong. I've been pretty consistent in my thinking... also you think DA gonna trade him for less than a monster offer?

Define good... like if we make an Ingram trade and end up as a playoff team (like actually make the playoffs) I will admit it worked better than I thought but also think we limited our ultimate ceiling to get smacked in the face in the playoffs. I will piss and moan at draft time when we don't have a lotto pick in a stacked draft.

I'm just not in to chasing the play in and am team tank... and I'm open to multiple ways of getting to the tank.

The wife getting mad at you for something you did in her dream is hilarious lmao

 

[jom2003]

For the record. If I’m offered 4 unprotected picks and a good young prospect and filler I’m pulling the trigger

At this point, Lauri is better for is as a trade piece than as a player. He can score 27/10 every game and it still won't be enough to make a difference. By the time we can finally put some pieces together and get ready to win again, the man is gonna be in his mid 30s and way past his prime. It simply does not work out. Unless we do something to speed up the process and capitalize on his prime, or might as well trade him while his value is still high.

 

[Coach Ellis]

He did, though. He traded away everyone from that 2022 team away in the span of 6 months except Clarkson. The Jazz went into the season with the worst betting odds in the league and the second worse over/under for wins. What else should he have done? Insisted that Minnesota and Cleveland trade us sacks of potatoes instead of young players?

I should’ve phrased it better. As much as he tore it down, I still think he could’ve done more. The deals with Brooklyn, Cleveland and Minnesota were fine, but it was everything else after those that could’ve been executed better. Keeping Conley and Clarkson to start the season was a mistake. Adding Olynyk and Dunn for essentially nothing were also mistakes. All of those guys were too stabilizing and also playing tons of minutes in a season that should’ve been dominated by young, inexperienced players.

I personally think he should’ve moved heaven and earth to swing a Conley/Clarkson/Bogey for Westbrook/THT deal before the season ever started.

DA should’ve stayed away from dealing with Minnesota at the trade deadline, and looked to maximize whatever value he could get for Beverley, Beasley, NAW and Vando in better ways than he ended up doing.

Wemby was a guy worth fully committing to the tank and improving our odds - especially since everyone expected the Jazz to be terrible. I really like TayHenny and Keyonte, but I would’ve maximized my shot at Wembanyamba.

 

[Thee Jazz Fan]

At this point, Lauri is better for is as a trade piece than as a player. He can score 27/10 every game and it still won't be enough to make a difference. By the time we can finally put some pieces together and get ready to win again, the man is gonna be in his mid 30s and way past his prime. It simply does not work out. Unless we do something to speed up the process and capitalize on his prime, or might as well trade him while his value is still high.

Well if the jazz keep doing what they’ve been doing or they pull their head out of its *** and tank proper, you are right but if the jazz follow through with their gig game hunting line then it would be nice to have Lauri on the team.

 

[tksavis]

The wife getting mad at you for something you did in her dream is hilarious lmao

Regular occurrence in my house. Luckily I'm not in the penalty box for long lol

 

[JimLes]

We are talking about 2 years ago and Clarkson was a big part of our hot start along with Olynyk and Conley. If the idea is to be bad then there is no point in having a bunch of solid vets hanging around to provide quality depth. Yeah no one thought that keeping Conley around would lead us to being a playoff team but there were plenty of people that thought keeping those vets around could keep us from the bottom of the west and giving us from improving our odds in the Wemby sweepstakes.

Clarkson has been a net negative since about 2021. Advanced stats show that the last season of Gobert/Mitchell era, his terrible defense outweighed the offense provided by a bit, then last season it did it by a lot, and then this year he basically fell of the cliff. We're just splitting hairs here, though.

The main issue is that no matter how hard you try to tank, two things happen. One is that even when you put a tanking team out there, players will surprise you. I really don't think a team with Lauri, Sexton, and Kessler wins fewer than 30 games unless you purposely bench people. Then you have the likes of Dunn. He was signed out of the G-League on a 10-day contract. If he didn't stick, it was probably China or lower European leagues for him. He ends up balling and looking like he could easily be a rotation player on a playoff team. It's not as easy to put together a losing teams as it sounds, especially when you don't already have a couple of years' worth of rookies who can't play.

The other thing is that the there are other teams tanking and they simply may be worse than you. Sometimes it's that their players are objectively worse, sometimes it's that their front office is terrible, sometimes it's that their coach is garbage. In some cases, it's all three. Again, you're not the only one playing this tank game. That first year of our tank, a team won 17 games and two others won 22. It's a race to the bottom and there are other racers.

And even if you finish with the worst record of all time, the NBA has been tinkering with odds to the point that the odds would still be 14% if you're the worst team in the league. That's 1-in-7. If you're a gambler, those are not great odds. The worst team in the league hasn't gotten the #1 pick since the league introduced the current odds and slashed the chances of said team from 25% to 14%.

 

[HermanG]

I've been thinking about a statement Ainge made a while ago - he said something to the effect that when we make moves it won't be with the goal of just being a playoff team, it will be with the goal of a championship. And now I'm looking at those new rumors about Ainge looking to make big moves this off-season and a lot of the ones that are being floated around just don't make sense. If anything to a large degree they lock us into playoff contention rather than legit championship pursuit. Unless we really think Trae Young-Brandon Ingram-Lauri is a championship trio. I don't see it. I'm sorry, I just do NOT think this is anywhere close to enough. A team built around those 3 likely loses in R1 of the Western conference playoffs.

So... here's the question... is there a player we don't know is available but might be... if you give a godfather offer? Is he probing about Giannis? I know it's a super long shot. But MKE is in a weird spot where they have aging core where most of them won't be getting better but worse and they don't have avenues to improve(they are kind of like we were the summer we traded Gobert and Mitchell). Again... really long shot... but maybe?

Who are other similar really high end players, who seem like a pipe dream, but there might be a glimmer of hope?

I think the best 3 players that will surely have some discussion around them are gonna be Giannis, Embiid and Booker.

Not sure if any of those 3 change addresses or if there are others. If Boston fails this year with the red carpet that was laid in front of them.. then who knows what they will do.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Houston is the best spot. If they send out Jabari Smith, #3, and the 2026 Brooklyn pick plus maybe one more thing. That is alot.

Kwame brown jr, #3 in a bad draft, and a future draft pick that likely isn't lottery definitely isn't worth it. They probably wouldn't trade that and that is pretty low value for a player of Lauri caliber. Teams aren't trading what he's worth. There is really no good reason to trade him unless he isn't signing an extension.

 

[sip]

Clarkson has been a net negative since about 2021. Advanced stats show that the last season of Gobert/Mitchell era, his terrible defense outweighed the offense provided by a bit, then last season it did it by a lot, and then this year he basically fell of the cliff. We're just splitting hairs here, though.

The main issue is that no matter how hard you try to tank, two things happen. One is that even when you put a tanking team out there, players will surprise you. I really don't think a team with Lauri, Sexton, and Kessler wins fewer than 30 games unless you purposely bench people. Then you have the likes of Dunn. He was signed out of the G-League on a 10-day contract. If he didn't stick, it was probably China or lower European leagues for him. He ends up balling and looking like he could easily be a rotation player on a playoff team. It's not as easy to put together a losing teams as it sounds, especially when you don't already have a couple of years' worth of rookies who can't play.

The other thing is that the there are other teams tanking and they simply may be worse than you. Sometimes it's that their players are objectively worse, sometimes it's that their front office is terrible, sometimes it's that their coach is garbage. In some cases, it's all three. Again, you're not the only one playing this tank game. That first year of our tank, a team won 17 games and two others won 22. It's a race to the bottom and there are other racers.

And even if you finish with the worst record of all time, the NBA has been tinkering with odds to the point that the odds would still be 14% if you're the worst team in the league. That's 1-in-7. If you're a gambler, those are not great odds. The worst team in the league hasn't gotten the #1 pick since the league introduced the current odds and slashed the chances of said team from 25% to 14%.

It is very easy to put together a losing team. You remove quality vets and play a lot of inexperienced young guys from the gleague. Super simple process. Yeah there is no guarantee with the tank but when the prize is Wemby you need to steer into that tank hard. At least then you have a general direction as well. These last few years we have been in no mans land and that is not a good place to be.

When it comes to Clarkson he was very good the first half of the 22-23 season. Good enough that he probably added an additional 5 wins at a minimum to our record.