"You Gotta Love It Baby" Official Jazz thread

[smokymountainrain]

FT numbers from a Portland fan:

Geez.

[MarkGrace]

Utah's hopes of sneaking past the Lakers into the West's final playoff berth have dwindled since a hope-generating win at Golden State as recently as Sunday night. After finally finding a way to win one in Portland, L.A entered the weekend as a 73.5 percent favorite, according to ESPN.com's Hollinger Playoff Odds, to snag the No. 8 spot. But one source close to the situation, echoing the sentiments in last weekend's Weekend Dime, insisted to ESPN.com this week that Tyrone Corbin will be back next season for the final year of his contract even if the Jazz -- filled with free agents and youngsters -- fail to reach the postseason.

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/p.../awards-ballot

Thrilling.

[MarkGrace]

League rank based on PER differential for each position.

C - 5
PF - 4
SF - 9
SG - 26
PG - 30

[Jacob]

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/p.../awards-ballot

Thrilling.

Filled with free agents and youngsters

This part of the quote is amusing. He could have just as easily written:

"Filled with highly paid veteran starters and a talented, athletic bench."

[Jacob]

Last night Boler and Harpring were going on and on about where the Jazz would be without Jefferson. IMO, they'd be about exactly where they are, fighting for an 8th seed, or 7th or 6th, or 9th.

Now, if they had been able to trade Jefferson last offseason for anything of remote value and had added AK instead of Marvin, as I suggested at the time, then they would have been a pretty decent team. Especially had they traded Jefferson for a mediocre-to-reasonably-good point guard, as everybody knew they needed.

I don't know why it surprised me watching AK so much last night. He looked to be the tallest player on the court all night. Starting lineup of Hayward-AK-Favors-Millsap, would have been a pretty damn good defensive team with whatever PG you put in place. And would have been just fine offensively.

I'm not touting AK as a big time difference maker, only a major upgrade over everything the Jazz tried to do rather than bring him back on a 2-year deal i.e. Marvin for about the same price on the same length of contract and Foye and Demare. And now that I'm all hot and bothered about it, I can't help but say that taking Marvin over AK may have been the Jazz biggest blunder of the off-season, but it's hard to put it above not moving Millsap or Jefferson.

[MarkGrace]

Just about everyone has Kabongo as a borderline 1st rounder at this point. I'd love to see the Jazz take him with the GSW pick.

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

Just about everyone has Kabongo as a borderline 1st rounder at this point. I'd love to see the Jazz take him with the GSW pick.

From Ford's chat today, he mentioned how the article on Shabazz citing his real age and some other issues is giving GM's the excuse they were looking for to drop him a little on their boards, and Ford said now him dropping just out of the lottery wouldn't be that surprising. On a team always in need of shooting I wouldn't mind a Shabazz/Kabongo combo out of the draft (assuming Jazz are picking at 14, can't possibly see him dropping any more than that). Kabongo is a always looking to get other guys a good shot, and putting him on the court with Hayward, a shooter like Shabazz, and letting him run SnR with Favors/Kanter would seem to put him in a nice situation.

Caldwell-Pope is supposed to be a good shooter as well, right?

[Blueintheface]

Almost over...

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

The box score tonight summed the season well for me in a couple of ways:

- Hayward only 8 shots. Mo was 3-13 and Foye was 1-9.

- Burks only played 13 minutes with Foye sucking and back-up PG minutes being given to Tinsley.

- Favors still can't get to 30 mpg in his 3rd season

- Al Jefferson looks like a good offensive player, the offense is run through him non-stop, but the team as a whole fails on offense and gets blown out on the road

Rinse and repeat again next year, and the next...is this the "Jazz culture" KOC, Locke, Corbin, Miller, etc. talk about?

[MarkGrace]

Dump everyone but Al.

[Maximus]

Dump everyone but Al.

Lol are you trying to suggest the worst possible thing the Jazz could do?

[Jacob]

From Bill Simmons trade value collumn:

Alec Burks (puzzlingly buried by the wildly incompetent Ty Corbin);

Burks got an honorable, honorable mention, or something like that. But the Corbin quote was most amusing.

Jimmer Fredette (I still think he'll be heard from someday on a good team, à la J.J. Redick, even if there's a 65 percent chance this point will be thrown back in my face on Twitter five years from now)

Hayward also just missed the top 50

45. Enes Kanter
44. Jonas Valanciunas
Fun little battle of promising/crafty/athletic big guys who are either wildly overrated or wildly underrated within the league (depending on who's talking). Kanter produced nearly every time Utah played him big minutes (including last month's eye-opening 23-22 game against Charlotte); that's the biggest reason why the Jazz will probably sign-and-trade Al Jefferson this summer.
...
As for Valanciunas, the promising Raptors big man who's been averaging a 15-7 since mid-March, here's a true story: When Sam Presti was quietly shopping James Harden last October, he called Toronto to feel out a Jonas package. And got rebuffed. Quickly.15 Let's give Jonas the edge over Enes if only because Weezer never wrote a song called "My Name Is Enes."

41. Derrick Favors
Since the All-Star break …

Player A (age 21): 28 games, 25.4 MPG, 9.6 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 2.1 BPG, 49.3% FG
Player B (age 23): 26 games, 25.4 MPG, 10.0 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 1.4 BPG, 53.8% FG

Player A: Favors. Player B? Faried.

(You know where I'm going with this, right? Derrick Favors … UNDERRATED!)

That's it re: Jazz for part 1

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...-column-part-1

Really, I'd say the whole thing is not very amusing. Don't know why I bothered.

[Donuthole]

From Bill Simmons trade value collumn:

Burks got an honorable, honorable mention, or something like that. But the Corbin quote was most amusing.



Hayward also just missed the top 50





That's it re: Jazz for part 1

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...-column-part-1

Really, I'd say the whole thing is not very amusing. Don't know why I bothered.

Simmons' written product is completely the opposite of his career arc. The more famous he becomes, the worse his stuff gets. I suppose that's pretty common, but it's particularly noticeable to me in this instance, since I read pretty much every word he wrote for about a 6-year period. I don't think I've read an entire column of his in 2 years.

[Maximus]

Apparently Corbin has the full support of the miller family. Ugh .

[BGRTHNUMEGO]

@tribjazz 18m

Lindsey: "I think it’s safe to say that in many ways Gordon’s going to have to grab our team a little bit like he did at Butler."

This was clearly obvious last year. But is it Gordon's responsibility to "grab the team" regardless of the scheme and strategy that the coach is putting in place? Is Gordon supposed to take the lead when others are announced as captains and given longer leashes with their play?