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Without Kanter

So without Kanter the Jazz's best player is regressing and the Jazz are still 4-1, beating 3 playoff teams in that stretch, and thus proving what a cancer Kanter was to the team
 
gregbroncs said:
I think Ingles is the most underrated player on this team. His defense annoys the opponent. While he's not super athletic or fast the other team gets pissed off at Ingles because of the way he plays defense. You can't say that about Burks. Hell Burks is invisible on defense most of the time and is definitely weak on that end of the floor.
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Further more while Burks looked to be improving and his outside shot is better than Ingles, Ingles straight makes passes and gets assists that Burks doesn't. He moves the ball better and he attacks the paint to make those passes just like Burks. The difference with Ingles he is a willing and natural passer and Burks is neither. Now Burks is better offensively, I'm not saying he's not. I'm just not sure he's all that much better overall. I also think Burks would be much better leading the 2nd unit instead of Trey.
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Those are fine observations, but empirically, Burks' win shares per minute are 37.5% higher than Ingles'. I think people have forgotten how dynamic Alec could be, and how just having him as another legit offensive threat on the floor opens up so much for the entire team. I think its a safe bet to say we will improve with him replacing Joe in the starting lineup.
 
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gregbroncs said:
I think Ingles is the most underrated player on this team. His defense annoys the opponent. While he's not super athletic or fast the other team gets pissed off at Ingles because of the way he plays defense. You can't say that about Burks. Hell Burks is invisible on defense most of the time and is definitely weak on that end of the floor.
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Further more while Burks looked to be improving and his outside shot is better than Ingles, Ingles straight makes passes and gets assists that Burks doesn't. He moves the ball better and he attacks the paint to make those passes just like Burks. The difference with Ingles he is a willing and natural passer and Burks is neither. Now Burks is better offensively, I'm not saying he's not. I'm just not sure he's all that much better overall. I also think Burks would be much better leading the 2nd unit instead of Trey.
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I agree with your points that Ingles is a better passer and defender. However, that's what we have Gobert, Favors and Exum for: defense. The problem with going all defense is just as we've seen in the post-Kanter era, we're prone to stretches where no one can score. That's all fine and dandy if our defense is forcing TO's and we're getting some fast break points. But if they don't, we can be beaten by even the dregs of the league. Utah has difficulty scoring in the half-court offense when the starters are in. Our only hope is usually to substitute Trey for Dante and tell him to be Kobe out there.

Portland was a very good win, but SA came in really struggling and Denver is barely better than a DLeague team. Lost to the Lakers and should have won vs. Milwaukee because the game was at home. The Bucks are probably about as good as we are now. They're strong defensively, but have players struggling on offense. Jazz need 3&D players in the backcourt to complement our strong, defensive frontcourt and provide spacing.
 
By far the most impressive stat since Kanter's departure is that the Jazz have moved up from #27 in defensive efficiency to #23 in FIVE GAMES!
 
For what its worth, over the past five games our offensive rating has been 101.4, good for 20th in the NBA, but our defensive rating has been 87.4... good for 1st in the NBA. By a lot. The gap between 87.4 and the current #1 defensive team is larger than the gap between the #1 defensive team and the #29 defensive team.

When you compare our ratings per game to our opponents average ratings for the year, it paints an even rosier picture. The Jazz, on average, are scoring 0.94 less points per 100 possessions than their opponents typically allow... and holding their opponents to an insane 14.8 less points per 100 possessions than their opponents typically score.

So very small sample size, but since we're all trying to speculate on the Jazz w/o Kanter, so far, the offense has fallen off a bit - not much, but a bit. The improvement on defense is offsetting it several times over.

EDIT:

I decided to also include the 4 other games Gobert started this season. Over those 9 games, the Jazz offensive rating is 104.7 (good for 11th in the NBA) and the defensive rating is 93.2 (1st in the NBA by a wide margin).

Taking into consideration the offensive and defensive ratings of their opponents during those 9 games, the Jazz, on average, are scoring 2.1 more points per 100 possessions than their opponents typically allow, and they are holding their opponents to 8.8 less points per 100 possessions than their opponents typically score.

Honestly the most bizarre thing about this data is that the Jazz allowed 3 of their 9 opponents to post a better offensive rating than their average, and all 3 of those teams are lottery teams. Might indicate an issue with getting up for weaker opponents.
 
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Siro said:
I think the claim that Burks can't play within the offense is unfounded. Not only has he improved a lot in that regard, he has shown to be a very good passer. That is specially the case on his penetration, which demands a lot of attention from the other team. Added to the fact that he's a better outside shooter than Ingles, there is simply no doubt that he would be a significant upgrade at the 2. I mean come on. We're talking about Ingles.
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This.
Burks did fine in our offensive system this year especially considering how little time he had in it.
 
Great post, KD.
Perhaps we can survive by just getting some offensive improvement from Gobert and Exum and inserting Burks into the lineup. However, I'm a bit hesitant to declare our offense is okay in the post-Kanter era. Trey has been playing out of his mind of late. Averages suggest it is not sustainable.
 
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