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Rudy the Beast

I am wondering if the current situation will bring an end to the absurd narrative that getting a good back up center is easy. Our entire offensive and defensive scheme is built around a particular kind of center and the center position is more important in Utah than any other team in the league. Finding the right back up who will come to Utah is a big deal.
 
gomretat said:
I am wondering if the current situation will bring an end to the absurd narrative that getting a good back up center is easy. Our entire offensive and defensive scheme is built around a particular kind of center and the center position is more important in Utah than any other team in the league. Finding the right back up who will come to Utah is a big deal.
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The thing is, even if we had had just Doke available, we would have at least been competetive. Anyone 6'10" or bigger would have made a difference. So the fact that all of our 3 7-footers were out was very very significant. But almost any warm body bigger than Ingles would have made a huge difference for us. I think when we talk about a backup being available on the market we are talking about the fact that players like Whiteside and McGee have been available every year that we spent a draft pick on a slow plodding big man with limited skills and likely for less money.
 
gomretat said:
I am wondering if the current situation will bring an end to the absurd narrative that getting a good back up center is easy. Our entire offensive and defensive scheme is built around a particular kind of center and the center position is more important in Utah than any other team in the league. Finding the right back up who will come to Utah is a big deal.
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How does this demonstrate that? The argument has always been that our best player is a center and we're burning up too many assets / too much money trying to find a backup when the cheaper alternatives give you just as much traction. That includes using a first round pick that we had to trade what amounted to Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant to get Tony Bradley (when Thomas Bryant would have been a better big than TB), continuing to extend his contract, then having to use assets to offload him, using our first round pick when we're already asset depleted to draft a center (Udoka) who we end up burying on the depth chart when we sign Favors for nearly $30M. We then had to use a first round pick to dump that Favors contract. And what did we get to replace him? We paid 1/4 the price to pick up Whiteside, who is giving us more production. Our guy that we most recently used a first round pick for, in his last game available when we were short-handed, he got a DNP-CD in favor of a guy on a 10-day who, up until this week, nobody even knew existed.

Tony Bradley: used a first round pick (and essentially traded a center who is better than him in the deal) and he was behind Udoh, a guy off the scrap heap, on the depth chart. We continued to pick up his contract and then had to salary dump him.
Derrick Favors: spent $30M on him and had to dump a first rounder to get off his contract and replaced him with a guy on a minimum who gives us more production.
Udoka: got a DNP-CD in Favor of Pelle, a guy on a 10-day who nobody had even heard of prior to this week.

So the argument is that we don't need to spend heavy assets or cash to find that backup, and that the guys available for pennies aren't any worse (and track record shows they're actually better) than the guys we invest a lot of money or assets into. How on earth does a game without centers show that it's "not easy" to get backup centers? We've already jettisoned all the centers for cheaper/better options that your argument is propping up. Are you arguing that we need to justify continued cap and asset expenditure to obtain backup centers, when all of the evidence suggests that doing so hasn't yielded any better results (and actually worse results)? That suggestion is rather unbelievable and I'm hoping you'll actually respond to the substance of this because I can't wrap my mind around any of it.

Is Tony Bradley better than Ekpe Udoh or Thomas Bryant?
Is Derrick Favors better than Hassan Whiteside?
Is Udoka better than Pelle?
 
JimLes said:
You brought up Wilt because you're not old enough to have actually seen Wilt play. Or any 60s basketball.
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So I got out of the conversation because it's a hypothetical apples to oranges kind of deal. The game and general talent level was just so different back then, it was like comparing a pickleball player to a tennis player. Or I guess a better analogy would be to compare Bill Tilden to Federer, Nadal or Djokovic as a GOAT candidate. I mean Bill Tilden had the greatest winning % in the history of men's tennis but who did he have to compete against? You see that old footage today and they just look like total hacks - of course much of it has to do with the evolution of equipment. But when the quality of competition and the strokes themselves are so different, where do you make the comparisons

And yeah I admit my calling Gobert GOAT is a bit premature. Too early really, but it was kind of tongue in cheek as I brought up the fact that Federer was widely awarded that appointment before both Djokovic and Nadal passed him up. (Tennis channel actually had Federer number one in their 100 Greatest of all time production from about five years ago - not surprisingly they don't show it anymore.)

In any event, it's always going to be subjective as far as who we idolize and consider the greatest. Gobert is always going to be the greatest in my book regardless what anybody says. Definitely my favorite player on the Jazz and has been for a very long time....even when "he shut down the league". (That whole thing was hilarious.) Why you say, and by what criteria? Because he's the antithesis of Wilt. Not that Rudy doesn't possess great athletic genes because obviously he does, but he didn't get the headstart that Wilt did in the competitive sports arena. And unlike Wilt, this guy has just worked so damn hard to get to this ridiculously elite level. Even Ingles said it in the JJ Redick podcast, that he's never seen anybody start from where Rudy did and become what he is today (paraphrased). I've obviously been watching this game for a helluva long time and I've never ever seen this kind of a meteoric transformation. And he's still improving every year - that's why he's the “GOAT”in my book and always will be.
 
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JimLes said:
Oh I know. Plenty of full games involving prime Wilt Chamberlain on Youtube. I myself have watched his 100-point game several times.
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There is no video of the 100 point game. They have some audio from the 4th quarter.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

The game was not televised, and no video footage of the game has since been recovered; there are only audio recordings of the game's fourth quarter. The NBA was not yet recognized as being a major sports league and struggled to compete against college basketball. The attendance at the game was approximately half of capacity, and no members of the New York press were at the game.
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infection said:
How does this demonstrate that? The argument has always been that our best player is a center and we're burning up too many assets / too much money trying to find a backup when the cheaper alternatives give you just as much traction. That includes using a first round pick that we had to trade what amounted to Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant to get Tony Bradley (when Thomas Bryant would have been a better big than TB), continuing to extend his contract, then having to use assets to offload him, using our first round pick when we're already asset depleted to draft a center (Udoka) who we end up burying on the depth chart when we sign Favors for nearly $30M. We then had to use a first round pick to dump that Favors contract. And what did we get to replace him? We paid 1/4 the price to pick up Whiteside, who is giving us more production. Our guy that we most recently used a first round pick for, in his last game available when we were short-handed, he got a DNP-CD in favor of a guy on a 10-day who, up until this week, nobody even knew existed.

Tony Bradley: used a first round pick (and essentially traded a center who is better than him in the deal) and he was behind Udoh, a guy off the scrap heap, on the depth chart. We continued to pick up his contract and then had to salary dump him.
Derrick Favors: spent $30M on him and had to dump a first rounder to get off his contract and replaced him with a guy on a minimum who gives us more production.
Udoka: got a DNP-CD in Favor of Pelle, a guy on a 10-day who nobody had even heard of prior to this week.

So the argument is that we don't need to spend heavy assets or cash to find that backup, and that the guys available for pennies aren't any worse (and track record shows they're actually better) than the guys we invest a lot of money or assets into. How on earth does a game without centers show that it's "not easy" to get backup centers? We've already jettisoned all the centers for cheaper/better options that your argument is propping up. Are you arguing that we need to justify continued cap and asset expenditure to obtain backup centers, when all of the evidence suggests that doing so hasn't yielded any better results (and actually worse results)? That suggestion is rather unbelievable and I'm hoping you'll actually respond to the substance of this because I can't wrap my mind around any of it.

Is Tony Bradley better than Ekpe Udoh or Thomas Bryant?
Is Derrick Favors better than Hassan Whiteside?
Is Udoka better than Pelle?
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That was a fun read that kind of points out the speculative and volatile nature of the business. But using the impulsive and fickle Snyder as some kind of bellwether for who’s more capable is a bit of a straw man in my mind. Or knowing you, perhaps that’s the real point.
 
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