Sandman822
Well-Known Member
The one thing I learned/took away from the Jazz' playoff run this year is that the on/off or +/- numbers with lineups mean jack **** come playoff time and it's all about matchups, as the Jazz are too well coached and have enough talent to get by in the regular season regardless. Jazz had zero matchup advantages against Houston in the starting lineup (outside of maybe the Favors/Capela matchup when Gobert got benched) and got thoroughly outplayed for the most part. Same is true against the Warriors, and other teams like Portland have more favourable matchups against us too.
Don't really care what the numbers in the regular season say, if we're running Mitchell at point it's gotta be because we think it'll give us a matchup advantage come playoff time (note - I think it can assuming Mitchell improves over the offseason, not trying to say it can't). But it's why even though a guy like Favors is a better player than a guy like Exum, I'd be more inclined to keep Exum over Favors when talking about bringing in someone like Tobias or even a PG like Kemba/maybe DLo if the Kyrie rumours are to be believed or trade for Conley because the potential matchup advantages Exum has as a versatile combo guard who can guard the opposing teams best player vs Favors who is borderline unplayable against the elite teams in the West unless he gets to play C (which means benching our reigning DPOTY) matters, even though Favors is the better player and is far more reliable and productive than broken down Exum has been the last few years.
We just can't start a guy who gives the Jazz instant matchup problems against any of the real contenders in the West and we can't pay him $17 mil to be a backup to one of our max cornerstones either imo. Favors will absolutely stuff the stat sheet for like 20 - 25 NBA teams currently if he got to play C but the Jazz isn't one of them because we have an all star level/DPOTY level center. If the roster was already contending level then you can think about it but considering the Jazz have glaring holes at PG and PF, paying $17 mil to Favs just doesn't make sense to me and DL missed the boat to trade him.
Don't really care what the numbers in the regular season say, if we're running Mitchell at point it's gotta be because we think it'll give us a matchup advantage come playoff time (note - I think it can assuming Mitchell improves over the offseason, not trying to say it can't). But it's why even though a guy like Favors is a better player than a guy like Exum, I'd be more inclined to keep Exum over Favors when talking about bringing in someone like Tobias or even a PG like Kemba/maybe DLo if the Kyrie rumours are to be believed or trade for Conley because the potential matchup advantages Exum has as a versatile combo guard who can guard the opposing teams best player vs Favors who is borderline unplayable against the elite teams in the West unless he gets to play C (which means benching our reigning DPOTY) matters, even though Favors is the better player and is far more reliable and productive than broken down Exum has been the last few years.
We just can't start a guy who gives the Jazz instant matchup problems against any of the real contenders in the West and we can't pay him $17 mil to be a backup to one of our max cornerstones either imo. Favors will absolutely stuff the stat sheet for like 20 - 25 NBA teams currently if he got to play C but the Jazz isn't one of them because we have an all star level/DPOTY level center. If the roster was already contending level then you can think about it but considering the Jazz have glaring holes at PG and PF, paying $17 mil to Favs just doesn't make sense to me and DL missed the boat to trade him.
