Can We Please Just Waive NWG?

[infection]

I’m not against it at all. It’s not a controversial either. Like I said before, Shaq is the worst kept secret online. Lowe just made a joke on a podcast on how every fan went crazy when CHI didn’t extend him a QO.

I simply said that there’s something we don’t know about Shaq’s situation. Could be many things. But the idea that this is a UTA specific issue...yeah that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Never disagreed with the idea of signing Shaq or another defensive player. I think it’s laughable that we’re taking this so seriously and using this is a prime example of the FO incompetence. You don’t have to look hard for that.

I think what you’re witnessing is that we’ve really dumbed this down. We’re not arguing for the obvious moves of moving Mike, because they absolutely refuse to do that. We’re looking at the hand we’re dealt and thinking even the small victories would be nice, so we’ve moved to the 14th man and we still can’t make the painfully obvious decision. If we want to move on from this and go to even lesser issues, I can’t imagine how bitchy that would look. So we can either be unrealistic in big moves or we can be bitchy about small moves.

 

[infection]

I think what you’re witnessing is that we’ve really dumbed this down. We’re not arguing for the obvious moves of moving Mike, because they absolutely refuse to do that. We’re looking at the hand we’re dealt and thinking even the small victories would be nice, so we’ve moved to the 14th man and we still can’t make the painfully obvious decision. If we want to move on from this and go to even lesser issues, I can’t imagine how bitchy that would look. So we can either be unrealistic in big moves or we can be bitchy about small moves.

I would say it’s kind of like when kids are in coach pitch baseball. When they can’t hit the moving pitch from the coach, you bring the T out. Well, our guy whiffed on all those pitches, so we brought the T out and we’re all cheering for him to put the bat on that ball, and spectators are thinking “man, why are they making such a big ****ing deal, it’s not like he’s hitting a pitch, it’s a T for hell sake!” Then our kid goes into his swing and *thud*, smacks the shaft of the T.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

This is a red herring because he won’t play precisely because he shouldn’t play. Hell, even when we had Conley our with injury he still didn’t play. I’ve already made the point that it didn’t matter if Neto was injured half the time you needed him because NWG wouldn’t get minutes in 100% of the times that you’d reach for Neto. So NWG never seeing the floor is distorting the potential for that spot.

Ingles and Royce were brought in as those guys.

There at least are situations where you’d bring in Shaq or Andre even when fully healthy.

 

[KqWIN]

You guys have some awful analogies lol.

I get it, the FO sucks and made some terrible decisions. But if we can't talk objectively about their moves or process, it's not much different than blindly following and supporting everything they do. I can't follow this logic of the Jazz suffering because their conservative, reactive, not aggressive ect. when they just made one of the worst moves of the past decade and possibly squandered the careers of Gobert + Mitchell. We're in a bad spot because of aggressive, yet awful moves.

I suppose that it is a more pleasant existence to look at everything negative, because you're either pleasantly surprised or you were right and you can try to brag about it online. But this is how you can turn into a maniac going over NWG vs some other player that no team wants

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I think what you’re witnessing is that we’ve really dumbed this down. We’re not arguing for the obvious moves of moving Mike, because they absolutely refuse to do that. We’re looking at the hand we’re dealt and thinking even the small victories would be nice, so we’ve moved to the 14th man and we still can’t make the painfully obvious decision. If we want to move on from this and go to even lesser issues, I can’t imagine how bitchy that would look. So we can either be unrealistic in big moves or we can be bitchy about small moves.

So much this... I mean coach tried to bench Mike and even that was too much for DL to handle.

I love the narrative about eventually DM transitioning to pg too. Yes dumbasses i been there for two damn years but once Mike expires we can finally be free to make the move we should have made a year or two ago and should make now. I could start the 15th “Tarde the Effs outta Mike” thread or settle for bringing in the obvious guy at a bargain price and get rid of the most replaceable guy on the roster. The guy that was first or second in my trim the roster voting threads this summer.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

You guys have some awful analogies lol.

I get it, the FO sucks and made some terrible decisions. But if we can't talk objectively about their moves or process, it's not much different than blindly following and supporting everything they do. I can't follow this logic of the Jazz suffering because their conservative, reactive, not aggressive ect. when they just made one of the worst moves of the past decade and possibly squandered the careers of Gobert + Mitchell. We're in a bad spot because of aggressive, yet awful moves.

I suppose that it is a more pleasant existence to look at everything negative, because you're either pleasantly surprised or you were right and you can try to brag about it online. But this is how you can turn into a maniac going over NWG vs some other player that no team wants

I’m not negative about everything they do I’m objective. I don’t think there is something we don’t know about Shaq... I think it’s that GMs don’t buy the sample size. It’s almost exactly the same thing as Caruso last year.


The Conley move is the prime example of being reactive and conservative... then running out of rope and overpaying. If they had pivoted earlier or been innovative enough to understand DM is likely going to be best if slotted as a pg then they avoid the big mistake.

I give the front office praise when they do good stuff and I bitch about the dumb stuff they do... big or small I pay attention to it all. It could be petty or it could be the thing that makes/breaks us. To be good in a small market you really need to win around the edges and I feel like we’ve struggled with some of these things consistently.

 

[infection]

You guys have some awful analogies lol.

I get it, the FO sucks and made some terrible decisions. But if we can't talk objectively about their moves or process, it's not much different than blindly following and supporting everything they do. I can't follow this logic of the Jazz suffering because their conservative, reactive, not aggressive ect. when they just made one of the worst moves of the past decade and possibly squandered the careers of Gobert + Mitchell. We're in a bad spot because of aggressive, yet awful moves.

I suppose that it is a more pleasant existence to look at everything negative, because you're either pleasantly surprised or you were right and you can try to brag about it online. But this is how you can turn into a maniac going over NWG vs some other player that no team wants

If you took a look at HH’s or my posting history over a number of years, you’d be hard pressed to make an argument that we’re just FO haters or that we just criticize every move. It’s not about conservative vs. aggressive. It’s about mistiming when to do each. This is something we’ve hashed out a lot over time. We’re very conservative — to a fault — and it causes us to be slow in making decisions until things come crashing down. Then we go out and be over aggressive in an over correction. Simply viewing it as aggressive / not aggressive misses the mark. It’s all about the appropriateness of those applications.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

People forget this is not 2K. We may want to bring Shaq but there could many different factors playing into his FA decission. His agent might be asking for the BAE. He could be looking for minutes or a specific system, coaching style. He may want to play in a big market. There could be personality issues we don't know about. On the other hand, yeah, NWG sucks and I'm surprised de couldn't find a better prospect (some talk about Neto but the guy got cut, so he might hold some grudge, who knows). We make too many assumptions about the FO activity/lack of it, but we can only see so far (basically, judge the outcome). Having said that, there has been a few headscratchers decisions and poor asset management this offseason

PS: freaking phone is autocorrecting every single word into another language so forgive the typos

I’ve been a “hey this looks goofy but let’s let it play out” guy for a while. Kinda sick of being right more often than I’m wrong and watching the front office **** up basic stuff... so I’m comfortable saying this is a dumb **** up now and that they are doing the comfortable thing... I’ve seen this movie before... just like I’ve seen the Udoka pick movie before. No need to wait for the end of the movie... I know how it ends.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

If you took a look at HH’s or my posting history over a number of years, you’d be hard pressed to make an argument that we’re just FO haters or that we just criticize every move. It’s not about conservative vs. aggressive. It’s about mistiming when to do each. This is something we’ve hashed out a lot over time. We’re very conservative — to a fault — and it causes us to be slow in making decisions until things come crashing down. Then we go out and be over aggressive in an over correction. Simply viewing it as aggressive / not aggressive misses the mark. It’s all about the appropriateness of those applications.

It’s also frustrating to call your shot at the time and then come back for the I told you so’s and have everyone talk about hindsight. Or get the “lolz like that pick even matters”. I will understand missing on guys if the processes are sound and logical.

 

[infection]

It’s also frustrating to call your shot at the time and then come back for the I told you so’s and have everyone talk about hindsight. Or get the “lolz like that pick even matters”. I will understand missing on guys if the processes are sound and logical.

I have no problem going down swinging at good pitches. But if we hit a triple on a bad pitch we don’t need to pretend it was a good pitch because there was a good outcome. And vice versa. I supported the Conley trade at the time (sans the fact that we traded good guys instead of forcing Exum into the deal) and even long after, but the fact that it became Conley was a corner we painted ourselves in to. I do fault how we’re addressing it now.

Not forcing Exum into the deal is a good example of getting a triple on a bad pitch. People could say “lol we ended up getting Clarkson for Exum,” which is true, but if people like to pull the hindsight card...

I want us to swing at good pitches. I don’t care if we’ve missed a couple times.

I don’t want us swinging at bad pitches. I don’t care that we hit a triple the last time we did it.

 

[KqWIN]

I’m not negative about everything they do I’m objective. I don’t think there is something we don’t know about Shaq... I think it’s that GMs don’t buy the sample size. It’s almost exactly the same thing as Caruso last year.


The Conley move is the prime example of being reactive and conservative... then running out of rope and overpaying. If they had pivoted earlier or been innovative enough to understand DM is likely going to be best if slotted as a pg then they avoid the big mistake.

I give the front office praise when they do good stuff and I bitch about the dumb stuff they do... big or small I pay attention to it all. It could be petty or it could be the thing that makes/breaks us. To be good in a small market you really need to win around the edges and I feel like we’ve struggled with some of these things consistently.

No idea how the Conley move or last off season can be seen as conservative. Massive overhaul of the team when they could have had a 50+ win team locked up for years by simply resigning Rubio and Favors who both wanted to be back. They didn't make conservative moves, they just made bad moves. Roping everything into being conservative isn't logical to me. They made a big bet on Conley, and it was an awful one.

Failing to see Mitchell as a PG isn't conservative or aggressive. That's just stupidity. I would agree that they are slow to find out obvious conclusions. Favors+Gobert as a duo was an obvious one. Took them years to figure that out, and as the cherry on top they bring back Favors to satisfy their next obsession....12 minutes of backing up Gobert.

But again, I don't see that as a function of being conservative or aggressive. If it's a lack of intelligence. The Jazz FO has been plenty aggressive at times, they've just failed miserably at doing so. Whenever I hear fanbases whine about not being aggressive enough, it's almost always 1) people like seeing transactions because they are fun or 2) people whining about anything and everything about the FO.

I mean, you literally skipped over the million times saying I would sign Shaq and came out of it convinced I was a DL fanboy and said I was making bad assumptions that were the opposite of what I said over and over. I even made it a point to emphasize that I was repeating myself, and you still missed it. So forgive me if I think something is clouding your objectivity.

 

[KqWIN]

If you took a look at HH’s or my posting history over a number of years, you’d be hard pressed to make an argument that we’re just FO haters or that we just criticize every move. It’s not about conservative vs. aggressive. It’s about mistiming when to do each. This is something we’ve hashed out a lot over time. We’re very conservative — to a fault — and it causes us to be slow in making decisions until things come crashing down. Then we go out and be over aggressive in an over correction. Simply viewing it as aggressive / not aggressive misses the mark. It’s all about the appropriateness of those applications.

I guess we have very different definitions of what conservative is. If you make several moves that fail miserably, that is not conservative to me. That's just making poor moves. I completely agree, viewing it as conservative/aggressive does miss the mark. Roping anything and everything into being conservative is the most basic, common thing from generic disgruntled fans. Seen it a million times from fans of all teams. Same type of people who are still happy when their team fails, because it at least means that they were right.

I'll believe you if you say you're an objective person, but I don't see objectivity I am going to try to understand what's getting you there. I just can't see how the failure to sign someone no one else has signed exhibits a crippling lack of aggression. I also don't think it's crazy to acknowledge that there's probably something with Shaq's situation that we don't know. Unless his agent posts on JazzFanz...that's undeniably true.

 

[infection]

I guess we have very different definitions of what conservative is. If you make several moves that fail miserably, that is not conservative to me. That's just making poor moves. I completely agree, viewing it as conservative/aggressive does miss the mark. Roping anything and everything into being conservative is the most basic, common thing from generic disgruntled fans. Seen it a million times from fans of all teams. Same type of people who are still happy when their team fails, because it at least means that they were right.

I'll believe you if you say you're an objective person, but I don't see objectivity I am going to try to understand what's getting you there. I just can't see how the failure to sign someone no one else has signed exhibits a crippling lack of aggression. I also don't think it's crazy to acknowledge that there's probably something with Shaq's situation that we don't know. Unless his agent posts on JazzFanz...that's undeniably true.

Lack of aggression isn’t a complaint I’ve lodged. Not signing someone like Shaq is a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. The problem is a lack of recognition of a problem (and also tunnel vision which is a secondary part of the problem). That problem is perimeter defense. Yes, this has limited possibility for upgrade because Clarkson, Bojan, Mitchell, and Conley are all four guys who will command a lot of minutes. The obvious and largest solution revolves around Conley, and we’ve already covered that we’re not going to change that. So the idea is that we’re content with what we’ve got. The complaint is really that we’ve locked in to one narrow idea. That idea is believing that all our defensive woes lie with the backup 5 spot (we were the guys complaining about this issue and told to trust the process). It seems as if we feel we’ve addressed that and that’s it. We’ve done our work. The fact that we’re pimping up the answer to be a guy who hasn’t played any impactful NBA minutes tells us all we need to know about how little of a problem they view this as. This has nearly nothing to do with Shaq.

 

[KqWIN]

Lack of aggression isn’t a complaint I’ve lodged. Not signing someone like Shaq is a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. The problem is a lack of recognition of a problem. That problem is perimeter defense. Yes, this has limited possibility for upgrade because Clarkson, Bojan, Mitchell, and Conley are all four guys who will command a lot of minutes. The obvious and largest solution revolves around Conley, and we’ve already covered that we’re not going to change that. So the idea is that we’re content with what we’ve got. The complaint is really that we’ve locked in to one narrow idea. That idea is believing that all our defensive woes lie with the backup 5 spot (we were the guys complaining about this issue and told to trust the process). It seems as if we feel we’ve addressed that and that’s it. We’ve done our work. The fact that we’re pimping up the answer to be a guy who hasn’t played any impactful NBA minutes tells us all we need to know about how little of a problem they view this as. This has nearly nothing to do with Shaq.

Fair enough. I do agree that the team has more or less neglected and obvious need for this team. Counterpoint to that would be that Oni is that dude, but that's not enough for me either. But for Shaq specially, I did make a specific point that with his situation there's probably something we don't know. And that was contested, so I felt the need to explain my reasoning. I am talking to two different people here, and HH specifically mentioned lack of aggression ect multiple times.

But the point stands for Shaq and every other signed player. No player remains unsigned because of something specific to the Jazz FO.

 

[Hekate]

I think both guys are elite perimeter defenders and its tough to say matisse has a bigger range of impact when their "do ****" numbers are either the same or favor Shaq (sample size I know).

The on/off numbers heavily favor Shaq in the argument... so the impact you are giving him credit for is strictly based on the eye test. I'm fine with that. Shaq's team was 8 pts better per 100 possessions with him on the floor and had a defensive rating of 103... Matisse was only 1.2 pts better and they were a 109 with him on the floor and he obviously plays with much better defensive talent.

Defensive impact goes beyond stats, though. Deflections aren't much better than steals and blocks when evaluating defense, not that it means it isn't good but you have to watch. When I watch Matisse I see him cover more ground, help better so yes, it's eye test. I can't seem to trust defensive stats much when there is so much they don't input. Not that I don't include them in my evaluation, though.

I agree Matisse plays with better defenders and Shaq's on/off numbers indicate he is a good defender.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Royce played at Baylor... Joe was a great find. He locks in on guys a lot in the draft. Its almost comical. He targets guys like Mike and won't deviate if the price is too high. This offseason a couple teams got the drop on us by flipping stuff we sent for something more than we got. There were circumstances but he either can't think on the fly or just didn't poke around enough. He was locked into his guys that he knew would be there so it likely doesn't matter. He drafts guys from Duke, Kansas, UNC... ain't like he's finding guys every year and developing them like Miami. I don't know that we've had one second round pick that has panned out since he took over... In the Jokic draft we had a second we sold because there weren't other guys that DL liked... that doesn't strike me as a wide net. DL is slowly reactive rather than actively looking to improve the team. He's a C+ GM that gets the credit of a 4.0 student.

As it relates to shaq he's gettable but that doesn't mean he can be had for a minimum deal. He might have minimum deals on the table in various locations that aren't ideal and eventually settles... but if some team came in with a 3 year 9M offer (we can do it through a sign and trade its quite easy). It might be the winning offer... that's what I mean by super gettable. Its fine though we can just let a glamour market scoop him up for a minimum deal.

The league as a whole misses on guys a lot for various reasons... and it isn't just Shaq. There are 10-15 guys much more deserving of a roster spot than NWG and its getting late... so hopefully DL hasn't closed up shop... but we know he likes to do his business early.

Holy **** this board is getting dumb

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

We still got people crying about Shaq Harrison when we signed his younger more talented clone.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Defensive impact goes beyond stats, though. Deflections aren't much better than steals and blocks when evaluating defense, not that it means it isn't good but you have to watch. When I watch Matisse I see him cover more ground, help better so yes, it's eye test. I can't seem to trust defensive stats much when there is so much they don't input. Not that I don't include them in my evaluation, though.

I agree Matisse plays with better defenders and Shaq's on/off numbers indicate he is a good defender.

Thybulle is leagues better and it's not close

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

HH: "Omg DL just laser focuses on a prospect and won't give up"

Also HH: *writes 1000th post crying about not signing Shaq Harrison*

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Shaq's in that weird grey area where he probably feels he deserves minutes but teams dont have the minutes for him, so he held out hoping something better would open up and it never did.

How may teams even have open roster spots now? The top European leagues are already in full-swing. The G-League might not even play this year. There are going to be a lot of solid players just sitting at home training during the NBA season.