1. It's not the SAME team. As I tried to point out in my previous post, last year had some key vets. Ty put them with the starters, which meant Kanter and Burks were coming off the bench. This year the "vet" is Booker, with the other bench players rookies and a sophomore. Experience DOES matter.
2. I never blamed Ty for the number of wins/losses. I'm not sure ANY coach could have gotten more than 35 wins out of that group. Adjust for the injuries to Trey and Derrick and I think the Jazz should have won 30 games. The difference between 25 and 30, IMO, came in the final 1 1/2 months when most players were just not playing hard. What I AM most critical of - and I know GVC and franklin have belabored this point to the contrary - is that Kanter and Burks should have been starters and remained starters from Game 1-82. Even before the season began, the big ? raised by the media and I believe it was KOC (could have been DL, though) was can Favors and Kanter start and play together? Never really found that out because they started only for a handful of games, when the Jazz had Abbott and Costello as the PG's. Then the game in which Burke finally became the starter was the same game Kanter was benched. It takes playing time to develop offensive and defensive chemistry. Late in the season, we did see a starting five of Favors. Kanter, Burke, Burks and Hayward But that group would be WAY ahead THIS season, even in a different scheme, had they started 70+ games together last year. There's simply no excuse why RJ and MW, who would be bench players on every other team in the NBA, were starting.
