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Trade Rumors Involving the Jazz

If a 6’2 PG is your shortest player it’s not a problem at all.

I know Locke keeps on talking about having everyone 6'5" or better, but finding superior ballhandlers at that height and above is just so difficult. finding just one is a tall order, finding 3 or four is pretty much impossible.
Sometimes people forget that we are just playing basketball. That being said, If you are under 6'4" you better be able to handle the rock.
 
I think all of us would agree Sexton is a better defender than Conley right?
Healthy Conley? I don't know. But we have only had healthy Conley for less than 20 games this year. Sexton is a better defender than hobbled Conley. Not sure you could say the same about Donovan Mitchell though.
 
I think all of us would agree Sexton is a better defender than Conley right?
Recently Mike has been pretty spry... so both sides of the court he has looked great. He had some great sequences/stretches in the game yesterday. I'd say Mike is the better defender but he struggles more when he isn't 100% or has a bigger guard to deal with. Collin has had his good stretches but I'd say he's worse on defense.
 
Healthy Conley? I don't know. But we have only had healthy Conley for less than 20 games this year. Sexton is a better defender than hobbled Conley. Not sure you could say the same about Donovan Mitchell though.
Sexton is way better than the Don we got last year. Actually giving an eff matters quite a bit.
 
The biggest things we'd miss would be the steady presence of Mike on and off the court. Even when he was out he was still helping the guys playing the position. We have talent to cover up the spot but will miss the playmaking and decision making a lot. Sexton just won't ever be the cerebral guy that makes 90% of the correct decisions. He has amazing speed and power and that will open things up at times that Mike is struggling.

I just find it kinda silly to say we wouldn't skip a beat... we may not fall off a cliff but I'd bet if Mike was out the rest of the year we'd lose at least 4-5 games we would have won.
 
Just think about where Mike is in his career and how he plays... he gives zero effs if he scores... he is 100% about making the best play for the team. Not sure if we understand how valuable that is... in addition to all his skill that mindset is crazy helpful to winning imo.
 
The biggest things we'd miss would be the steady presence of Mike on and off the court. Even when he was out he was still helping the guys playing the position. We have talent to cover up the spot but will miss the playmaking and decision making a lot. Sexton just won't ever be the cerebral guy that makes 90% of the correct decisions. He has amazing speed and power and that will open things up at times that Mike is struggling.

I just find it kinda silly to say we wouldn't skip a beat... we may not fall off a cliff but I'd bet if Mike was out the rest of the year we'd lose at least 4-5 games we would have won.

Well yeah… in this scenario we are getting actual players back for him.
 
I think all of us would agree Sexton is a better defender than Conley right?
I’m a big Sexton fan, but the advanced numbers would say he is a little worse at D than Mike. However, those numbers could be skewed if the Jazz normally hid Mike on their defensive scheme.

He is on par with Clarkson on D and better than Mitchell was on D for the past two seasons with the Jazz.
 
Disagree on Mike. I think we'd slide pretty hard. We are like 4-6 I believe with Sexton as a starter... one of the wins was the miracle GS game. I think NAW was on fire during that stretch so we may not have felt the full brunt of the injury. With the way Mike is currently playing his loss will be felt. Dev time for those guys is important so I'd agree there... and if we didn't fall off we will have learned something.

I don't think NAW is quite as good of a shooter as his percentages have been thus far but agree we should lock him up and it would be good to kick the tires a bit more. He could be a solid long term value play.

I would be more inclined to believe that if we played fantastic with Mike on the court, but we're not. There's always an element of randomness to this, especially given small sample sizes, so maybe we are actually significantly better with Mike and the numbers don't bear that out. But that can go both ways. Personally, I'm not convinced and while Conley still has his merits, he also has a lot of flaws at his age and Sexton/others also have stuff they bring to the table. If there's a drop off, I don't think it's because we're worse with Conley is so much better than Sexton...it's because he's so much better than THT who gets extended minutes. I do believe the difference there is real because THT is so crappy, so maybe the win difference would be real....but it could be mitigated by putting in a replacement level player or playing Sexton more minutes.


There are 32 games left in the season. If the cost of losing Mike is 4-5 wins, that would mean that would mean he changes the Jazz overall net rating by like +5. This is some bad back of the napkin math, but only star (superstars?) have that kind of impact. Gun to my head, I think we're worse, but not by much. But even if we are, does it matter? I don't really think so. I can guarantee that when draft time comes people around here are going to be wishing they were drafting just 1-2 shots higher. Development wise I think it's nice to have Mike around....I think it's also nice to give the younger guys more opportunity. I would prefer to have the increased opportunity for others and I would prefer to be 1-2 spots in the draft too.
 
I would be more inclined to believe that if we played fantastic with Mike on the court, but we're not. There's always an element of randomness to this, especially given small sample sizes, so maybe we are actually significantly better with Mike and the numbers don't bear that out. But that can go both ways. Personally, I'm not convinced and while Conley still has his merits, he also has a lot of flaws at his age and Sexton/others also have stuff they bring to the table. If there's a drop off, I don't think it's because we're worse with Conley is so much better than Sexton...it's because he's so much better than THT who gets extended minutes. I do believe the difference there is real because THT is so crappy, so maybe the win difference would be real....but it could be mitigated by putting in a replacement level player or playing Sexton more minutes.


There are 32 games left in the season. If the cost of losing Mike is 4-5 wins, that would mean that would mean he changes the Jazz overall net rating by like +5. This is some bad back of the napkin math, but only star (superstars?) have that kind of impact. Gun to my head, I think we're worse, but not by much. But even if we are, does it matter? I don't really think so. I can guarantee that when draft time comes people around here are going to be wishing they were drafting just 1-2 shots higher. Development wise I think it's nice to have Mike around....I think it's also nice to give the younger guys more opportunity. I would prefer to have the increased opportunity for others and I would prefer to be 1-2 spots in the draft too.
I understand how folks math all that stuff out... I get it... I love on/off court data... I really do. I think it misses when projecting wins for an individual player.

Its pretty simple in my mind... are there 2-3 games I think Mike plays really well and the margin may be thin so without him we lose? Yes. Do I think there will be a game or two where THT/NAW/Sexton have eff ups that cost us a game or two? Yes. Do I also consider the effect trading Mike would have on depth and the potential for that to cost us a game or two if the other guys get hurt? Yes.

Mike is one of the best playmakers in the league. Literally he is top 7 in assists per minute. That is a void we will be hard pressed to fill and without that guy I can quickly see a push and pull between guys as they go "my turn your turn".

Can't really just Math the absence of Mike in my mind. We play a **** ton of close games so a few shifts in those games and they are losses.
 
I understand how folks math all that stuff out... I get it... I love on/off court data... I really do. I think it misses when projecting wins for an individual player.

Its pretty simple in my mind... are there 2-3 games I think Mike plays really well and the margin may be thin so without him we lose? Yes. Do I think there will be a game or two where THT/NAW/Sexton have eff ups that cost us a game or two? Yes. Do I also consider the effect trading Mike would have on depth and the potential for that to cost us a game or two if the other guys get hurt? Yes.

Mike is one of the best playmakers in the league. Literally he is top 7 in assists per minute. That is a void we will be hard pressed to fill and without that guy I can quickly see a push and pull between guys as they go "my turn your turn".

Can't really just Math the absence of Mike in my mind. We play a **** ton of close games so a few shifts in those games and they are losses.

Yeah, the big thing with Mike is also depth. When you have third string playing second string minutes for long stretches we suffer. It is good that Kessler is playing Olynyk's starting minutes. It would be better if Olynyk was back playing Gay's minutes.
If the margin of error for winning is THT, we are boned. No two ways about that. He has had ample chances too. We'll see what he brings next year.
 
Yeah, the big thing with Mike is also depth. When you have third string playing second string minutes for long stretches we suffer. It is good that Kessler is playing Olynyk's starting minutes. It would be better if Olynyk was back playing Gay's minutes.
If the margin of error for winning is THT, we are boned. No two ways about that. He has had ample chances too. We'll see what he brings next year.
Even KO has "won" us multiple games... like if we had traded Bogey for no players coming back I think there are easily 4-5 games we lose... either he got hot or hit game winners etc.

I understand the logic behind using math to map out a player on court difference... I just think it isn't exact and not having Mike (on court or in the locker room) is a 4-5 game swing.
 
I understand how folks math all that stuff out... I get it... I love on/off court data... I really do. I think it misses when projecting wins for an individual player.

Its pretty simple in my mind... are there 2-3 games I think Mike plays really well and the margin may be thin so without him we lose? Yes. Do I think there will be a game or two where THT/NAW/Sexton have eff ups that cost us a game or two? Yes. Do I also consider the effect trading Mike would have on depth and the potential for that to cost us a game or two if the other guys get hurt? Yes.

Mike is one of the best playmakers in the league. Literally he is top 7 in assists per minute. That is a void we will be hard pressed to fill and without that guy I can quickly see a push and pull between guys as they go "my turn your turn".

Can't really just Math the absence of Mike in my mind. We play a **** ton of close games so a few shifts in those games and they are losses.

When Mike is out and we lose closely, yeah it's going to feel like we could have won with him. But what people don't think about is that there will also be games that Mike does play and plays poorly. Even if one player is better than the other, he's not playing better 100% of the time and even if he does it might not make the difference between W/L. Take two parallel universes where we have Mike and we don't have Mike. There will be times where it doesn't matter because both he and his replacement both play well or both play poorly and it doesn't change the result. There will be times where Mike plays better than the replacement, and it makes the difference. There will also be times where he plays better and it doesn't make the difference between winning and losing. There will also be times where the placement, even if he's worse overall, will perform better than Mike and it could make the difference. You have to consider all that, not just the times where Mike plays better and it makes the difference. It's very easy to look back at a game and say, "ah we would have won with Mike".

Dismiss it because "math" if you want, but Mike would have to have a superstar level impact to make a 5 game difference in 32 games. RAPTOR had 6 guys total in the NBA produce at that level last season. Say that's totally off and there's actually 5x more players who can do that in the league. Is Mike a top 30 player right now? I don't think he's close. 10x more players that can do that, he's still not close to being a top 60 player. I think he's actually pretty similar to Collin Sexton's level, who we are 5-8 without btw. I think the impact of losing Conley would be very similar to losing Sexton. The bench would drop, and that would make a difference, but probably not a ton. This is also assuming we get no player back better than THT.

Numbers aren't everything of course, but I won't dismiss them unless there is something overwhelming that overrides that. And all of this just to bring up the real question, do we care if we win 1, 3, or even 5 more games with Mike? If we do win 5 more with Mike, do we actually want to win those 5 games anyways? You can be dead set that Mike wins us a lot more games, but that also servers as legitimate rationale as to why we SHOULD trade him.
 
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