I don't know if it's a FO issue or a Quin issue but with the talks of lack of adjustments I can't help but think about what if we had the answers potentially sitting on our bench? I'm talking about the likes of Brantley/Morgan/Oni. What if one of Brantley or Morgan was the small ball 5 we needed when Gobert was getting schemed out. or Oni was the defensive stopper to come off the bench even for 5-10 minutes. Obviously last night wasn't the night to try it out but they should've been playing somewhat regularly throughout this season and last, so when the time comes for games like that you know if they are usable or not well in advance. The league requires instant results and in all honesty we should know by now if those players can be trusted or not. If not then ship em out/cut em they were cheap and there's plenty of cheap players out there that can fill a need. Roster spots are valuable.
Terance Mann was drafted 2 picks ahead of Brantley and 10 picks ahead of Oni and looked what happened last night. Sure no one was expecting him to be the hero. But he played enough throughout the past 2 years that he can be trusted on the biggest stage. He's played in more total games and almost 800 more minutes than those 2 combined. But because the Jazz don't give those players any meaningful minutes in the regular season we literally don't know how much or how little of a factor they could have been.
Again idk if things like that are a FO issue where DL is trying to protect his draft asset as much as possible and keep them in the G League away from prying eyes or if it's Quin who's so reluctant to try out players and change up from his rotation/system because it's not his way. But either way some of these questions need to be answered this summer.
Every guy you listed has proven himself not to be an NBA player. We always look like the worst team in the NBA in garbage minutes. Our roster outside of the 8-man is just complete garbage.
You move on and try your luck again with new recruits. One realistic thing we could do is clear out the back half of the roster completely (other than Doke and Hughes) without giving up a thing. Buy a couple second rounders, really think through the summer league roster, just cast the net again on the back half of the roster in hopes of finding a diamond in the rough.
Realistic possibilities I hope to see this summer:
1. Fire DL today.
2. Make a decision on Conley. I’d draw the line at 20mil, if it’s that or less than that, bring him back on what should be a tradeable contract so you don’t just lose the asset.
3. Niang, Oni, Brantley, Morgan, Forrest and Thomas all gone. Let’s clear the deck with the back half and try to find a rotational 3-D guy with one of these spots. We’ll probably need to buy some second round picks, maybe even the more expensive early second picks. There is no risk to doing this, because we already have the worst back end of the roster in the NBA. Everyone else’s scrubs always look so much better than ours.
4. Use no. 30 on a 3 and D wing player.
5. Scour the trade market for something that makes sense for one or some combination of Bogey, Clarkson, Ingles, or Favors.
6. Fill out the rest of the roster with the exceptions and minimum contracts.
In essence, put an adult in charge in management to make better decisions, and hope you get really lucky.
