you're one of the best posters on this site, but this post is trash. Strawman + childishly shuts off certain perspectives that had good points for the thrill of shutting down all dissenting opinions. Pretty gross. You can leave last offseason in peace, since even Lyndsey admitted to playing it too conservatively. And I'm certainly done with it at this point.
au revior
Fair enough. I haven't had the desire, nor the time to get too involved in explaining why I think the criticisms of DL have been iffy at best. I understand completely why you and HH believe he should have been more aggressive last offseason, I just don't think you're being very objective about the big picture.
For one, there was an advantage to maintaining cap flexibility last year, as it would have given us a better possibility of pulling off a trade at the deadline, when better opportunities may have become available. Just because nothing happened, doesn't mean it was the wrong decision to give ourselves that option. Hard to say without knowing exactly what opportunities we may have passed on.
Secondly, I'm not at all convinced that DL was even interested in making the playoffs last year. I'm going to be very interested in watching how quin coaches this year, as there are certain things that led me to believe he was more interested in development than actually winning games. FE, there were games when Utah had a lead and then lost it because of some crazy lineup Quin had in that made no sense, such as having both Hayward and Hood on the bench at the same time. Almost seemed like he was more interested in putting the team in a situation where they had to fight in a close game, than actually winning.
Also, I admit I have a pet peeve against fans complaining about not signing certain players, when chances are that player had no interest in playing in Utah. Without knowing exactly what opportunities we may have had, it just feels like nit-picking to me sometimes. The whole cake baking to me has always been misunderstood by most fans. They assume it means we just decided not to pursue anybody because we wanted to see what we had. In reality, I believe it simply meant we were being extremely patient in making moves, which really wasn't a bad thing, even if we were a little too conservative. I don't believe for a second that DL wasn't looking under every rock for opportunities last year, but was being very cautious about finding the right one.
Anyway, for all the criticisms about what DL has or hasn't done, we'll soon find out just how good of a job he's done in putting this team together. For me, after seeing the way the team played after the Kanter trade, I think DL deserves the benefit of the doubt for now.
P.S. FWIW, I've wanted Burke traded for the last two years, and wanted the Jazz to trade for Ty Lawson even before Exum got hurt. Had they done so, we probably would have given up the pick we just traded for Hill, and wouldn't be in the position they are now. As much as I wanted Burke gone/replaced, sometimes it's best to just be patient and wait for the right opportunity. I'm pretty optimistic that DL's patience is going to pay off.