What is the jazz doing!

[Ron Mexico]

I'll preface this by saying we absolutely made the right choice to take the deals for Donovan and Rudy, but I have found myself curious what this year could have looked like if we kept them. Mostly the West is so weak right now, I wonder what we could have done just by making a coaching change. I think we are seeing that Donovan, Royce, and Bogey are having great years. Gobert is having a down year though.

I think the most likely outcome would be a top 3 seed in the West, but early playoff exit. What do you all think would have happened this year if we kept the band together?

I agree with the trade in general. The Gobert trade was simply too much to pass on. There is just no way we could say no to that. Mitchell is a keeper but didn't want to be and we got a little lucky in that trade with the Lauri breakout. So I'm also glad we moved on from him with what we got.

But as far as this season with them, it's pretty hard to tell, too many what ifs. Would Mitchell be playing this well? Would we have made other trades? Last year's team had talent to go further but serious internal problems, if those weren't fixed somehow they weren't going very far again.

 

[Mr. T]

I had fun that season. Should have lost just a few more though


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Embiid is one of the least likeable players out there. Besides Harden. Maybe its a good thing they are on the same team. Minimizing encountering them during the season. It also helps that they both are in the east.

 

[Nate505]

What are the guarantees that the Jazz are ever better than a 2nd round playoff loss, if we go win now? Oh, we can use all of our assets to trade for a player? What player are we trading for that can take us to the next level. OG Anunoby? John Collins? That's the type of player we can trade for. Not a superstar. We certainly are not getting superstar FAs. That type of decision leads to a 2nd round loss. You didn't even want to trade Donovan or Rudy. Look at how that would of turned out compared to the where we are today. I think I can say that you were wrong about that outcome. Funny how exciting this year has been compared to last year, despite the Jazz taking a "tanking" mentality by trading our stars. We had to go backwards or "tank" by trading them in order to move forward. Addition by subtraction, a concept that has been around forever in all aspects of life. Middling out is the absolute worst situation. As much as you can't understand "tanking," I equally, if not more, cannot understand you enjoying being a play-in or 14 pick type team? The only thing I understand is that it's comfortable, boring, stagnant, lazy, etc. There is no enjoyment for me and a lot of others in that scenario, unless it is a stepping stone back up from "tanking."

That's not quite true. Perhaps I felt like we shouldn't have traded either at one point, but by the end of last season it was clear that one had to go, and I said so (around the end of May) and said I would prefer Mitchell go due to the likelihood of him getting a better haul and him probably wanting out soon anyway.

I definitely wanted the Jazz to keep Gobert, and have freely admitted since then that the trade was a massive boon in the Jazz's favor.

Here's where we disagree. This year wasn't really a tanking mentality. The Jazz did trade their stars, but they took chances on young players with potential. I was always fine with that. And one of them is having a career season and looks like he can be at the very least an elite sort of #2 player on a team. Tanking is intentionally getting worse in hopes of getting lucky in the draft, then doing garbage like sitting healthy players in an attempt to lose. That's horrid stuff, the Jazz aren't doing that, and I'm thrilled they aren't doing it.

And I much would prefer to be a play-in or a 14 pick type team than a tanking team. Heck, what is the great tanking success story out there? The 76ers? They've been about as successful as the Jazz have been since The Process started. The Warriors? They hit on their franchise players with a #7 pick and other picks lower than that. The Bucks? Same deal. The Lakers? Free agency. The Raptors? They built a solid team with lower round picks and made a gamble trade for a star (who also happened to be a mid round pick). The Celtics? They got their high round picks via a great trade Ainge made, not by sucking, except the pick for Marcus Smart.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I'll preface this by saying we absolutely made the right choice to take the deals for Donovan and Rudy, but I have found myself curious what this year could have looked like if we kept them. Mostly the West is so weak right now, I wonder what we could have done just by making a coaching change. I think we are seeing that Donovan, Royce, and Bogey are having great years. Gobert is having a down year though.

I think the most likely outcome would be a top 3 seed in the West, but early playoff exit. What do you all think would have happened this year if we kept the band together?

Jazz would have looked great then they would have blown a 3-1 series lead to the play-in Lakers in the first round.

 

[Korisfani]

Heck, what is the great tanking success story out there?

It's the thrill of the lottery. As in: the same as winning the actual lottery. All you need is that one thing to hit and you'll be set for life (or 12-15 years). No need for all of that rebuilding. Boom and you're done. (I'd almost wager there's a correlation between propensity for gambling addiction and preference for tanking )

And you might hit on that Duncan, LeBron, Zion, be in the hunt almost straight away and stay there for a long time. But you're more likely to be the one that picked Bagley over Luka, Fultz over Tatum or, heaven forbid, Greg Oden over KD. And with the current lottery odds it's more probable you're actually going to be picking 4th and between Darius Garland/RJ Barrett/Coby White. Where hitting on a Garland is great and they might quickly become an All-Star level player, but the team's fortunes aren't suddenly transformed in that get-rich-quick way.

 

[Conestoga Finn]

@Korisfani

I have same perception. There is strong correlation between gambling addiction and preference for tanking for sake of tanking. I'd also add preference to fantasy basketball to this phenomenon too.

A lot of people discuss and handle with tanking scenarios like they would be the goal itself. Problem with perpetual tanking mode is that it seldom gets anyone to anywhere. It is like building project of a house, where you may finish walls only to demolish them soon after as better bricks for walls might be available some time in a future. If they some time luckily manage to get roof building going on same will happen with it also. They typically never get to the phase of interior decoration, to build livable building.

Tankers almost always forget that the phase of development for their highly sought picks and drafted prospects, and when they are developed (i.e. actually play) they are perceived and managed as assets for further picks and prospects. Considering how small is a typical probability to land to real jackpot, it is utterly silly to put so much focus to bare hypotheticals and forget actual players already in your roster.

Jazz have good example of a player where this can lead in Lauri Markkanen: Bulls and Cavs rejected perfectly fine building block because they were too eager to get roof and interiors finished. Now they are then amazed when Lauri acts as bricklayer, roof builder, and interior designer of Jazz....

Tankers typically forget that just picking players, no matter how promising, and putting them in to the same roster won't be the fastest and best way to get anything ready, neither winning team nor livable house. Lauri as a draft pick needed both time and right place to become what he is today.


Hardcore tankers aren't playing basketball.

 

[Jingled]

I'll preface this by saying we absolutely made the right choice to take the deals for Donovan and Rudy, but I have found myself curious what this year could have looked like if we kept them. Mostly the West is so weak right now, I wonder what we could have done just by making a coaching change. I think we are seeing that Donovan, Royce, and Bogey are having great years. Gobert is having a down year though.

I think the most likely outcome would be a top 3 seed in the West, but early playoff exit. What do you all think would have happened this year if we kept the band together?

I think it would've just been more of the same. A lot of regular season wins, and some perplexing losses followed by quotes from Donovan saying, "we know what we need to do, we just need to go out there and do it". The end result would have been a 1st or second round playoff exit. That team had some serious weaknesses that were always exposed in the playoffs, and no assets cap space to solve them.

 

[Conestoga Finn]

If Tanking (out of fantasy scenarios). Then, you must think also about the question of a team, culture within a team, and how to include your myriads of picks (warming bench) to your tanking scheme.

You must ask few questions by yourself (no doubt those already on the bench warming picks will do that), when going to all encompassing and all embracing, all-will-change-better-with-this-pick-when-installed-as-a-random when he sits in his closet in a locker room: unproven-by-default--rookie-to-his-rookie-bench-in-his-first-NBA-locker-room. Tankers by their heart, absolutely, and always ignore unavoidable sociological facts when they override the existing roster in their hopeful desires to make 'a better team'.

For this roughly painted scenario, we need only point to two things. First, the prospect, pick. Second, how he is playing, evaluated by his team mates and co-players, coach, in given 'picked' scenarios. A tanker is not needed in any of these relevant steps. If the pick surpass the test, it is not a random online Tanker who is entitled to say: "I was right".

PERKELE! F*@3$&# Mö&öNs! No pick ever existed without a context, and no pick was ever non-player, non-player.

 

[Conestoga Finn]

As an Active Member, I apologize for my foul behavior.

But, I won't ever forgive for those hopelessly infected (well known) tankers of no hope (who will tank till to their apparent destinies), only hoping some lucky strike. Poor guys didn't just realize that they should put their money to something, in a stream of time...

It is really hard to be a Finn, Lauri Fan, and seeing all that out-off-basketball live, by same kind of guys I am, but with a lot more wider audiences, and less insights.

I understand the Tank. But now it isn't the time for it.

 

[fishonjazz]

Why? What are the guarantees the Jazz would have took Embid if they had the 1 or 2 pick?

Its about odds rather than guarantees. They have a better chance to draft embiid at 1 or 2 than 5.

Let me ask you this? Did winning an extra 3-5 games that season do anything for the jazz franchise? Could we have even possibly done worse in the draft than we did?


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[fishonjazz]

In retrospect people cry about missed opportunities... because we still suck at predicting the future.

No crying. With restrospect if you could have the jazz lose a few more games in that tank season so we end up with embiid rather than exum would you want that to happen?


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[LogGrad98]

No crying. With restrospect if you could have the jazz lose a few more games in that tank season so we end up with embiid rather than exum would you want that to happen?


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You know if we had taken Embiid in that draft, considering that we traded for both Mitchell and Gobert there was still a possibility we could have added both of them as well. Would a core of Mitchell, Gobert, Embiid have been able to get us there? Fun, and aggravating, to think about.