The following may sound douchey, but since it's true, you'll have to deal with it: if you have never played competitive sports, particularly basketball, you are most likely in the pro-tank crowd. Here is why that's such a foolish perspective on this season.
Knowing how to win close, high-level games is a learned skill. Outcomes of games aren't coincidental in most cases. In basketball, there are hundreds of elements to the game and how it's played to be in position to win a game. Among those elements are something as simple as execution of basic fundamentals to as complex as a read-and-react action based on how secondary defender is guarding. The teams that do a combo of all those things better and more consistently, and at the right times, win.
The primary outrage of the Jazz consumers should lie squarely on Greg Miller who's made the choice to penny-pinch with a coach while the roster restructured from the D-Will/Booz era. Corbin may be a great guy, and perhaps knows more about basketball than any of us could ever dream of. But guess what? He can't ****ing teach it. Obviously, our roster this season featured plenty of young guys with bright futures. They had the same breakdowns defensively tonight against the Lakers (specifically guarding the pick-and-roll) that they did the first game of the preseason - and basically every game in between.
Favors and Kanter react to double teams as poorly as they have since they've come to the Jazz under Corbin's tutelage.
Burke showed his moxy as a 'killer' during the Big Dance, and several times this season. Burks was THE breakout player of the season for us, and the most positive storyline for us. He was a complete monster in the 2nd half of the season, and looks to be a star in the making. I thought I had seen enough to gather what a 'best-case scenario' would be for him last season, but he surpassed that for sure this year. His relentlessness attacking the cup and ability to get buckets in the lane, and trips to the FT line, is rare and will be an awesome piece for us.
Hayward has a really, really nice all-around game. He's had plenty of time to display a killer, alpha-dog mentality but hasn't even come close, and if he stays he'll be complementary as opposed to the star as many of us had once envisioned.
Those five NEEDED to learn to what it takes to win games in the league this year.
The window of opportunity is short, and we have talent to be a real contender down the road. If we had a capable coach the last few years grooming these pups, there's no way we finish as crappy as we do this year.
The most concerning part for me is that there's no way any of the players were 'tanking', and I'm 99.9% sure the coaching staff wasn't prepping for games or making subs with the conscious hope that it leads to a loss. To do that as a player would be admitting they aren't good enough to be real, so lets suck to try and get a good lotto pick and someone who may be good.
There's no guarantee (sans a guy every few years) that a top 3 pick rookie will be a franchise-changing, immediate impact player. To be honest, none of the current guys in the draft will be the reason a team becomes a bona fide playoff team in the next two years. So to go through a season where our great nucleus of five (TB, AB, GH, DF, EK) can't gain the invaluable experience of winning close games, and/or blowing teams out - and knowing how/why they did so - for the chance to take a kid who may or may not pan out down the line is awful. To want that is a joke, and displays cluelessness.
Aaron Gordon is the most NBA ready of all these guys because he'll be able to contribute at a relatively high level defensively and I haven't seen him projected to go top 3 anywhere. I'd take him in a heartbeat.
It is imperative the Jazz find a coach who not only is capable with the dry-erase board, but understands teaching the game and developing talent and cohesion on the court.
We've got 5 MFs who are really good in the talent dept for their respective positions, but need to be coached up at an NBA level in the worst way.
Jazz fans should've been rallying to get these 5 to get some confidence playing for and with each other by getting dubbs this year. There were plenty available.
No one who has a casual-fan's basketball mind can say the Lakers roster is more talented, or better, than the Jazz tonight. What was the difference then?
