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Sneak peek at my Jazz offseason preview

jazzfan1971

jazzfan1971

Well-Known Member
It's not a finished product as I'm collaborating with someone this year and they haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but, I thought I'd throw it out there for some Jazz fans to hate on.

Hate away!

27 – Utah Jazz

Projected Lineup
PG – Trey Burke, Dante Exum, Ian Clark
SG – Alec Burks, Carrick Felix
SF – Gordon Hayward, Rodney Hood, Steve Novak
PF – Enes Kanter, Jeremy Evans, Trevor Booker
C – Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert

Position Battle: Trey Burke vs. Dante Exum. IMHO Exum is the eventual starter at PG and Burke is the backup. When that happens is open for speculation. I'd guess either after the All Star break or starting next season.

Trade Block: Enes Kanter. Kanter and Favors couldn't co-exist last season under Corbin. It remains to be seen if Snyder can solve the riddle. If not, look for Kanter to be shopped. On a totally unrelated note the Jazz brought in two free agent power forwards in Booker and Novak this offseason.

Mystery Man: None other than Dante Exum. He was the biggest mystery of the draft and is the biggest mystery on the Jazz.


21, 23, 24, 22, 23

That's the ages of the projected starters. Rounding out the top 8 would be Exum, Hood, and Gobert.

19, 21, 22.

An average age of 21.875. Lets just say 22. It's kinda like the Jazz are running a team of College seniors out there. Adreian Payne (15th pick of 2014 draft) is older than the average age of the Jazz top 8; put that in your pipe and smoke it. If Corbin was still the coach he'd find a way to get 96 minutes a night out of Novak just to piss off Jazz fans. However, I don't see anyway Snyder manages to screw up the youth movement -cough- Tank -cough-. I think it's another long year for the Jazz with all that youth and they'll finish bottom of the Western Conference once again.
Click to expand...
 
Does the #27 mean you project Utah as finishing 27th out of 30 teams?
Think you're wrong, but we'll see.
 
27 is sort of a placeholder, I'm letting the other guy sort out who finishes where and he hasn't finished doing that yet. But, I dno't think #27 is that far off.
 
It's funny how the offseason shapes folks opinions on teams. I went and posted on each and every team's page on realgm asking folks what their depth charts would be, what the main stories of their teams were, and where they expected to finish the season. I learned that in the East there will be about 14 teams making the playoffs this year. And the average finish for each team would be about #12 of 30.

Every team's fans have high expectations this time of year. When I look at the Jazz I see a team that got even younger than they were last year. Marvin and Jefferson at least brought the Jazz a little stability. Now we've got a bunch of 22 somethings being led by a rookie coach. It's not a recipe for success in my mind. It should be a fun ride. Plenty exciting, but, I just am not feeling a lot of wins coming out of that group. Maybe the Lakers are worse in the West. Maybe. But, a healthy Kobe is probably still good enough at his age to lead a team. (nobody knows how healthy he will be though)

It would be another story if the Jazz played in the East, but, with a West heavy schedule I think it's going to be a lot of 'learning experiences' and 'moral victories' this year.
 
^^
You could be right. But those "key vets" you mentioned averaged 10 and 9 pts/per, easily replaced by Booker and Novak (and Hood). Jazz are NOT starting off with the 2 worst PG's in the league (Tinsley and JLIII). The top 5 scorers all return. Trey is no longer a rookie and Hayward is very likely to improve his shooting stats. Utah played nearly .500 (20-22) after their miserable start. Then the team collapsed. I say they QUIT playing for a lame-duck Ty. I DOUBT that happens under Snyder. Bench is much improved. Playoffs? No. At least 5-10 games better? Yes.
 
I think this board has been more realistic than that. Almost none of us expect the playoffs. There is a thread here with 36 wins as the average. So not even .500 for the season. I think 27 of 30 is to low as they were better than that last year and have improved the bench and PG positions dramatically. Also Hood and Novak should help with stretching the floor.

If you think that 27th is about right then you are actually saying that the Jazz will be even worse this year. I simply do not see that. I say they will be around 18-22 out of 30.
 
Mongoose said:
There's no way Evans plays ahead of Booker, having Evans on the court with Gobert is redundant and pointless. Evans can't shoot.
Click to expand...

Trevor Booker Jump Shot FG% for career: 31.7% (37.8% last season)
Jeremy Evans Jump Shot FG% for career: 38.3% (38.5% last season)

Booker has taken more than twice the amount of jump shots Evans has but it's not like he is a reliable shooter.

Their rebounding rates are identical, they score at the same rate/same usage rate, Jeremy Evans is more efficient because of all the dunks, more active defender (more blocks and steals) and a better passer (at least statistically). I do understand that Booker has started over 100 games compared to Jeremy's 7 but still Jeremy has been pretty awesome whenever he gets time on the floor. I guess I'm just an Evans fan and I hope he doesn't get less than his 18 minutes a game that he got last season.

Booker is probably 50 pounds heavier while being 2 inches shorter which is important because I agree Evans and Gobert could get pushed around together.
 
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jazzfan1971 said:
It's funny how the offseason shapes folks opinions on teams. I went and posted on each and every team's page on realgm asking folks what their depth charts would be, what the main stories of their teams were, and where they expected to finish the season. I learned that in the East there will be about 14 teams making the playoffs this year. And the average finish for each team would be about #12 of 30.

Every team's fans have high expectations this time of year. When I look at the Jazz I see a team that got even younger than they were last year. Marvin and Jefferson at least brought the Jazz a little stability. Now we've got a bunch of 22 somethings being led by a rookie coach. It's not a recipe for success in my mind. It should be a fun ride. Plenty exciting, but, I just am not feeling a lot of wins coming out of that group. Maybe the Lakers are worse in the West. Maybe. But, a healthy Kobe is probably still good enough at his age to lead a team. (nobody knows how healthy he will be though)

It would be another story if the Jazz played in the East, but, with a West heavy schedule I think it's going to be a lot of 'learning experiences' and 'moral victories' this year.
Click to expand...

and you botched the Utah Jazz's depth chart?
 
The trade with Cleveland extended Evans' NBA career one more year. He will most likely be in Idaho or Europe next summer.
 
Depth charts are never perfect. I put Novak at SF instead of PF not because I expect him to play there so much, but, because we only had 2 small forwards and all ready had 3 power forwards. It was better balance to put Novak at SF. But, it's not alltogether unreasonable, Novak has spent a lot of his career playing at the SF position. If Rodney Hood went down with injury I suspect that Novak would be the best option to take those backup SF minutes.

And the Jazz LOVE Evans. Always have. What makes anyone think that Booker is going to come in here and push Evans out of the lineup? It's not like Booker is some game changing player. I don't get the hate for Evans. I've always thought he's done well when he's got minutes.
 
jazzfan1971 said:
Depth charts are never perfect. I put Novak at SF instead of PF not because I expect him to play there so much, but, because we only had 2 small forwards and all ready had 3 power forwards. It was better balance to put Novak at SF. But, it's not alltogether unreasonable, Novak has spent a lot of his career playing at the SF position. If Rodney Hood went down with injury I suspect that Novak would be the best option to take those backup SF minutes.
Click to expand...

My sources say that Novak used to play some point guard at teh gym with his bois. And, since the past should be used to totally disregard his present attributes, I think you should move him to backup PG just in case Trey or Dante go down.

Happy to help.

And the Jazz LOVE Evans. Always have. What makes anyone think that Booker is going to come in here and push Evans out of the lineup? It's not like Booker is some game changing player. I don't get the hate for Evans. I've always thought he's done well when he's got minutes.
Click to expand...

Booker will push Evans out because he's better than Evans.


any other questions?
 
Core4 said:
^^
You could be right. But those "key vets" you mentioned averaged 10 and 9 pts/per, easily replaced by Booker and Novak (and Hood). Jazz are NOT starting off with the 2 worst PG's in the league (Tinsley and JLIII). The top 5 scorers all return. Trey is no longer a rookie and Hayward is very likely to improve his shooting stats. Utah played nearly .500 (20-22) after their miserable start. Then the team collapsed. I say they QUIT playing for a lame-duck Ty. I DOUBT that happens under Snyder. Bench is much improved. Playoffs? No. At least 5-10 games better? Yes.
Click to expand...


I agree with all of this except the the fact that the team collapsed. They simply played better competition in April. We were not a .500 type of club.
 
I think Exum could see some minutes at SG, but, without listing players at multiple positions it's hard to represent in my depth chart. Right now I don't really expect to see Felix do much more than waive a towel (or maybe get waived himself?).
 
Booker is a proven solid starter on a playoff team. Evans is...a nice garbage minutes guy, maybe.
 
Thanks for the work and evaluation JF1971. Good addition to the forum imo.
 
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