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The Non-Jazz NBA Thread in the Jazz Section

sip said:
Odds are neither guy will be as good as Ant. Ant is really really special on both ends of the court. We all know about his offense but defensively when he decides to lock in he is really special. He moves his feet so well and with his strength he can just bully guys. Similarly to Jordan and Wade when they really wanted to lock guys down.
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Ya Ant has best player in the league expectations at this point. Multiple MVP's kind of player. It's likely that no one in this draft will be as good as him

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Handlogten's Heros said:
I also think there were some dynamics here of Rudy being here first and then Don kinda stealing the spotlight. There was some push and pull that neither guy fully embraced the other. Ant is just no BS (for good or bad) so I can see him being cool with Rudy calling stuff out. Kyle took a swipe at him last year so this stuff can get spicy for sure. Its about how you respond. With us both Rudy and Don kinda shut down in different ways vs. having the fight and working through it.

I'm sure it would really fuel Donny's desire to bail on the Cavs if Rudy won a title. Kinda a Shaq/Kobe but in a more passive aggressive mode thing.
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You are sort of right but missing the reason.

Edwards has gone through seasons where his team was bad and Donovan never has.

I think the team just took Rudy for granted and started buying into the national media narratives about how you can't win past the first round with Gobert. Quin took Rudy for granted and exploited his lack of need for the ball by not creating a bigger emphasis on finding him when he was open under the rim. Don saw himself put up massive numbers and still lose, which probably led him to believe he needed more offensive help rather than helping Gobert defensively. DL took Rudy for granted and decided we had to maximize the shooting around him instead of helping him defensively.

Edwards doesn't have that (even triply so for KAT). He came into a bad organization known for losing and he wasn't granted immediate success. The team made a huge commitment to making Gobert work instead of taking him for granted.

I also think Edwards is just flat out better than Mitchell on both ends and being better and having more size is the most important thing in the nba.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
I’ve got 4. Wouldn’t have missed their births for anything. It was an amazing experience for me not to mention the other stuff.
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Idk. I have 4 as well, but there is definitely a dollar figure that would have pulled me away from the birth, or anything else for that matter. Except conception. Enough question-marks there already. :rolleyes:
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
You are sort of right but missing the reason.

Edwards has gone through seasons where his team was bad and Donovan never has.

I think the team just took Rudy for granted and started buying into the national media narratives about how you can't win past the first round with Gobert. Quin took Rudy for granted and exploited his lack of need for the ball by not creating a bigger emphasis on finding him when he was open under the rim. Don saw himself put up massive numbers and still lose, which probably led him to believe he needed more offensive help rather than helping Gobert defensively. DL took Rudy for granted and decided we had to maximize the shooting around him instead of helping him defensively.

Edwards doesn't have that (even triply so for KAT). He came into a bad organization known for losing and he wasn't granted immediate success. The team made a huge commitment to making Gobert work instead of taking him for granted.

I also think Edwards is just flat out better than Mitchell on both ends and being better and having more size is the most important thing in the nba.
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Yeah hard to disagree there. I think there is a lot that goes into it. Also have to give huge props to KAT for being incredibly open to the Rudy experience and sacrificing to make it work. It seems like they are genuinely friends and not just work associates who sometimes share proximity while eating lol.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Idk. I have 4 as well, but there is definitely a dollar figure that would have pulled me away from the birth, or anything else for that matter. Except conception. Enough question-marks there already. :rolleyes:
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lol yeah it’s a figure of speech of course. Hell my wife might be willing to sell my presence off for cheaper than I think.
 
Jesus Christ, the Boston line is -12.5 and that's with Porzingis confirmed out and Allen being a GTD.
 
The Cavs just don't have enough offense to keep up with contenders. Mitchell can go for 40 every night. It won't make a difference.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
You are sort of right but missing the reason.

Edwards has gone through seasons where his team was bad and Donovan never has.

I think the team just took Rudy for granted and started buying into the national media narratives about how you can't win past the first round with Gobert. Quin took Rudy for granted and exploited his lack of need for the ball by not creating a bigger emphasis on finding him when he was open under the rim. Don saw himself put up massive numbers and still lose, which probably led him to believe he needed more offensive help rather than helping Gobert defensively. DL took Rudy for granted and decided we had to maximize the shooting around him instead of helping him defensively.

Edwards doesn't have that (even triply so for KAT). He came into a bad organization known for losing and he wasn't granted immediate success. The team made a huge commitment to making Gobert work instead of taking him for granted.

I also think Edwards is just flat out better than Mitchell on both ends and being better and having more size is the most important thing in the nba.
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I agree with most of this but in particular the bolded. I think most people bought into this, especially coupled with a misdiagnosis of what the actual problem was. It's just that certain narratives become overwhelming for people. You can resist the tide only so long. One or two people or a small group consistently saying things is one thing, but when everyone in unison keeps saying the same thing, it just ends up being too hard to swim upstream and you give in. I'm not sure I agree on Don thinking he needed more offensive help. Perhaps indirectly but even Don saw the "historic" numbers for the offense floated around and he felt this was happening despite Rudy and his personal issues with him skewed his feelings about what he brought on the offensive end, without recognizing that he was one of the largest beneficiaries offensively of what Rudy did, not to mention the fact that Rudy's defense allowed the team to be where it was to have its offense even be relevant. But Donovan came in to this situation. The only "suck" he experienced was his rookie year when Rudy was out, and not until Rudy returned did we come back. Despite Donovan's lack of acknowledging this, I believe deep down there was some insecurity and he wanted to prove that this success was more a result of him and not this unseen Gobert force. Even though that wasn't the popular narrative, there was a pretty good mass of knowledgeable people that credited Rudy for this and I believe the lack of unanimity of it being "Don's team" was at least a partial factor in his underlying resentment. That and when Rudy would call things out, though most people couldn't see the reality of the situation, I believe Donovan to some extent did and he attempted to suppress it and try to overcompensate. When the failures came, it was easier to feel it was on Gobert and the system, and after he built up this brand in his rookie year of being this humble, teachable kid who wants to work really hard and continue to self-improve, he faced the reality that his pathway forward wasn't aligned with that image so he embraced the things in front of him that made it easier and/or more justifiable to fall out of love with Utah.

But I lay a lot of the failure at the feet of DL and Quin. Ultimately they are the ones in the situation to see this problem and intervene or at least mitigating some of these issues. We didn't even need gigantic course corrections from either party to avoid half our problems. DL needed to just do a couple small things around the edges. Quin needed to adjust his strategy of baiting the offense into looks that are low-efficiency on a spreadsheet (when those "low-efficiency" numbers have been collected in the setting of a standard defense attempting to defend them... and are not reflective of what those numbers look like when the defense is completely surrendering those looks). The emphasis needed to be staying with your guy on the perimeter. I do not believe at all that you need a bunch of wirey, dirty athletic dudes to be able to accomplish this. You can do it with average and below average defenders. It just became conditioned strategy to let people blow by you because "hey, run them right into Rudy, our secret weapon."

Just look at our pre-Mike and pre-Bojan teams that were good on defense. Who were the great defenders we had? 34 year old Thabo Sefolosha? Jae Crowder? Thabo was a good defender but was old and played 21 mpg the first season and 12 mpg the second. Jae Crowder had a reputation as a defender but wasn't great. It was more just that these guys (everyone) played defense where the expectation was to stay in front of your man. When we swapped Jae for Bojan and Ricky for Mike, it wasn't the defensive capabilities that significantly dropped, it was the emphasis of the defense where Quin just said let everyone shoot open from mid-range or meet Gobert at the rim.
 
It's not often I turn a playoff game off, but Tony Brothers has made this game unwatchable.

Everybody on the Wolves would have been in foul trouble last night with this whistle.
 
I predict Don gets swept. I'm sure there will be a statement today or tomorrow "We know what we need to do, we just need to do it."
 
MT Steve said:
It's not often I turn a playoff game off, but Tony Brothers has made this game unwatchable.

Everybody on the Wolves would have been in foul trouble last night with this whistle.
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Calling a game with the two biggest foul baiters in the game has to be a nightmare
 
Defense is a team effort, nor jus only one or two guys. I think the big change at Minny came from pre-season where the team challenged himself for becoming the best defensive team in the NBA. And they made it. Rudy was part of it of course but if you look at the best data in defense for the season, Minny put 6 or 7 players in the top 30, including small Mike! Rudy at number 1, KAT at number 7, ANT number 9, Mike 16th , MacD 17th, NAW...
As i say at the beggining of the PO, good offense wins you games, good defense wins you series. And this team has great talents offensively. Even when they start slow, you know that there wil be a moment where they will catch fire on 3. And ANT is already clutch at 22.....
 
I just dont see Boston winning the chip this year either. Their perimeter defense or rim defense doesnt look special at all, and Tatum has looked pedestrian for a month or so. They talk a lot, but I dont even care who comes out of the West I would likely bet on that team regardless.
 
Any preference from a Jazz standpoint on the OKC/DAL series?

Dallas has put together a pretty good team, but I'm pretty sure they have exhausted most of their resources, and so if they aren't competitive in this series, they might feel stuck and start selling.

On the other hand it would be nice to feel like OKC has some vulnerabilities with this core. The further they advance in the playoffs, the more it is going to feel like an unsurmountable task to get to their level.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Any preference from a Jazz standpoint on the OKC/DAL series?

Dallas has put together a pretty good team, but I'm pretty sure they have exhausted most of their resources, and so if they aren't competitive in this series, they might feel stuck and start selling.

On the other hand it would be nice to feel like OKC has some vulnerabilities with this core. The further they advance in the playoffs, the more it is going to feel like an unsurmountable task to get to their level.
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Not really
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Any preference from a Jazz standpoint on the OKC/DAL series?

Dallas has put together a pretty good team, but I'm pretty sure they have exhausted most of their resources, and so if they aren't competitive in this series, they might feel stuck and start selling.

On the other hand it would be nice to feel like OKC has some vulnerabilities with this core. The further they advance in the playoffs, the more it is going to feel like an unsurmountable task to get to their level.
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If you add in their bench prospects and picks, I think OKC already feels like they are bound to get to a level that is unaccessible to most teams.

So the further they go, the more other teams might panic (blowups, overpaying on upgrades etc). And the other side of it is that the more success OKC has... the more they gotta pay their guys when that day comes. Only thing to stop or even slow down OKC right now is probably cap/CBA stuff they might run into.

So I'm all for OKC going as far as possible at this point.
 
KqWIN said:
Ironically, this makes me remember Jimmy Butler's tenure with the Timberwolves with Wiggins and Towns. He was ran out of town for his attitude....but that same mentality is glorified as "Heat Culture". You want the latter. Maybe guys like Butler and Gobert are like 10% too demanding, but you want a team culture where it's ok to be too demanding. When Gobert tells Mitchell and Clarkson to play defense, their response was "how dare you". I'm sure they had this conversation a million times in the locker room and it was the same response. If Gobert had to tell Ant to play defense, I'd bet that Ant would say "hell yeah". Thing is, Ant is a true competitor and will rise to the occasion on his own.

The Don/Rudy Jazz was a top to bottom failure. The FO, the coaching staff, the players.....they would rather get embarrassed over and over in the same way before they sought to address their mistakes and improve. They were content to be stubborn losers year after year.
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Like that old saying. “You would rather look good and lose than look bad and win”.
 
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