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Who Do You Prefer Among Ace Bailey, Tre Johnson & V.J. Edgecombe? (Poll)

Which player do you prefer for the Jazz?

  • Ace Bailey

    Votes: 28 26.4%

  • Tre Johnson

    Votes: 45 42.5%

  • V.J. Edgecombe

    Votes: 21 19.8%

  • I don't have a strong preference.

    Votes: 12 11.3%
  • Total voters
    106
SoberasHotRod said:
I had an epiphany this morning. I was imagining that the Jazz drafted Ace Bailey and I was watching him dribble in to mid range jumpers, miss the open guy and defensive assignments, and I don't think I can watch that for a whole season.

I think that VJ makes the Jazz the most watchable next year, and I've decided that I should be placing more value on this than I have. After all, entertainment is what this whole thing is about. It's extremely difficult to guess what VJ, Ace, or Tre will be 3-5 years from now, but it's not as difficult to guess what they will be like in their first year. VJ is not going to ball stop, he's going to improve our perimeter defense, he's going to make plays, and he's going to defy gravity at times.

VJ is my pick.
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Welcome. Much has been made about our losing culture and the effect that has on our young players. I have mixed thoughts about that, but I do have worries about putting Ace and Tre here. I think both are great prospects, but they both have some bad habits they need to get rid of and need to replace them with better habits. Being the #1 guy on a tanking team doesn't seem like the environment to do that.

I guess it worked for Cade, but maybe Cade was just a special talent that would work out anywhere.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
I don't think we can really plan on building around any of them. By not getting Flagg or Harper we are already punting to next year to get our franchise guy.
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☹️
 
SoberasHotRod said:
I don't think we can really plan on building around any of them. By not getting Flagg or Harper we are already punting to next year to get our franchise guy.
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Exactly. So another layer of that evaluation is who is going to facilitate setting up the future better; some chuckers that may or may not play defense, will make us crazy watching them, and that will probably reinforce bad habits? Or a dude that will help set a culture, be easy to cheer for, and be a hell of a lot of fun to watch (even if it’s kinda ugly a lot of the time)?

VJ will be an instant fan favorite and draw. Yes, he will drive into walls and turn it over. He doesn’t have great wiggle or finesse. His shot annd playmaking are not amazing. His athleticism and effort are amazing. His defense is a highlight reel, saying nothing of the dunks. He’s like super Sexton. It’ll be a good time, and he’ll be good for the players we bring in after him.
 
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NUMBERICA said:
Kinda doesn’t matter. We still need to suck. But we need tough-minded prospects to endure through the pain and play the right way. Our time to make a big splash is next offseason. VJ would be a pillar, but probably not The Guy.
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I honestly don't think we're really compromising that much upside potential by going with VJ. Tre and Ace play more like "stars" right now in the sense that they shoot more, but they will need significant developments to pull that off at the next level. VJ obviously needs improvements to scale up, but that happens way more than you'd think. I'd actually be willing to say that when it's not obvious (like a Flagg or Harper) and you get to that next tier of prospects and beyond there are just as many if not more stars whose path would reflect mope closely to VJ's instead of Ace/Tre. Shai, Mitchell, Franz, Haliburton, Booker, Bane, Herro etc. where not super usage guys in college.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Who's the Dirk Nowitzki in this situation?
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Well, for what it's worth your description of Ace Bailey really fits Dirk in his rookie year when he lived off low% mid-range jumpers, had abysmally low assists and played horrible defense.

"When the season finally started, Nowitzki struggled. Played as a power forward by coach Don Nelson, the 20-year-old felt overpowered by the more athletic NBA forwards, was intimidated by the expectations as a number nine pick, and played bad defense; hecklers taunted him as "Irk Nowitzki", omitting the "D" which stands for "defense" in basketball slang."
 
NUMBERICA said:
Uh huh. Yep. Everyone that plays hard and isn’t a 1st tier star is Royce O’Neale.
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Not everyone, but teams are usually not looking for that type of player with the 5th pick in a strong draft. Especially when it is their first top-5 pick in 10 years.
 
jazznik said:
Not everyone, but teams are usually not looking for that type of player with the 5th pick in a strong draft. Especially when it is their first top-5 pick in 10 years.
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Why is playing the game the right way a negative thing to you?
 
NUMBERICA said:
Why is playing the game the right way a negative thing to you?
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It's not. I personally like VJ more than everybody else we can draft at 3. His defense and court vision are really special. But he is still an undersized SF, a tweener. Every once in a while you end up with someone like Draymond Greene or Paul Millsap but usually these players are struggling a bit.

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