Gyp Rosetti
Banned
So a 15-20 game stretch erases four years of being a bitch?
Well...so much for trading AK.
- Thread starter Beantown
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So a 15-20 game stretch erases four years of being a bitch?
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
ok, so change your argument now because i proved your last point wrong.
KrazeeEyezKilla said:
revisionist history. when AK has been (a) healthy and (b) involved, he has done great things, and the team has been better. what would say his role has been over the last 4 years? you can't define it, and neither can i, and neither can AK. that's the problem. how do they expect to get anything consistent from him when they're not giving him a consistent role? he'll go from being a 30-mpg starter who handles the ball, makes decisions and is a key contributor in the clutch... to being a bench guy sharing spot minutes with inferior talent... to being a super-sub bench guy who still plays 28-30 minutes and is the centerpiece of the 2nd unit... back to being marginalized and frustrated.
engaged employees who feel valued and important contribute at a higher level, in ANY job. i can tell you that because that's what i do for a living. AK has constantly been shelved, back-burnered, marginalized, or overlooked, and yet every time the team realizes it and starts making him important again, we all remember just how good AK can be. the only problem is that fans (and apparently AK's own teammates) have a short memory, so we forget when 5 minutes later he strains a calf and and we go back to making jokes about his glass frame and his heartlessness.
at the end of the day, no roster move the jazz could make with their remaining assets would have CLOSE to the same effect as getting AK back to 80% of his former self. 80%, that's all. keep looking for magical soluations like anthony tolliver and shannon brown, but if the jazz committed to making AK matter again on an every-game basis, it would DRASTICALLY change the quality of this team.
InGameStrategy
Well-Known Member
+1 for the Nerd.
Being involved is why AK should be a starter. Oh--and he's also the best 3 we've got by far.
I still think that Boozer's departure and CB's replacement's better attitude (AJ) and Kirilenko's synergy with Millsap will do wonders for Kiri and the team this year. Not $17 million worth of wonders, but wonders all the same.
Being involved is why AK should be a starter. Oh--and he's also the best 3 we've got by far.
I still think that Boozer's departure and CB's replacement's better attitude (AJ) and Kirilenko's synergy with Millsap will do wonders for Kiri and the team this year. Not $17 million worth of wonders, but wonders all the same.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Not at all. I actually like AK. But not at 17M+ this year. And not re-upped at the 8-9M price tag annually as other people have mentioned. If he played 82 games a year, that would be one thing. If he brought it consistently, that would be another. But he does neither. And people are living in the past hoping he'll find himself again. It's pathetic really. Chuck Noll once said how one of his biggest regrets was hanging on to players for too long, after they'd lost what they once had. Now, I'm not saying AK's lost it; when healthy he's still very good. But the idea of holding on to a player for nostalgic reasons and hoping he'll find himself again is the same and that's what we're doing with Andrei.
Note: I can live with 3 years, 20M.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
I agree with pretty much everything you said except for your last sentiment. A clearly defined role for AK, and in turn a more productive AK, would not net us a drastically improved team. We'd be slightly improved to 54 or 55 wins but at the end of the day we'd still have a gaping hole at the 5 on the defensive end and AK, even when healthy, has shown he can't really even slow down the elite wings in the league let alone guard them well.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Again, I want to re-emphasize that I do like AK but at 5.5-7M per. No more. I think a 3 year, 20M offer is fair given his injury history and an inability to really drive and create his own shot or have a consistent perimeter game. And this is where he'll predominantly play for us given the fact that we have Millsap or AJ who will start at the 4 both now and moving forward.
friendsinmyhead
Member
This has been a common defense for AK over the last several years. Ak is not being properly used, he doesn't get to start, he doesn't get enuff minutes, etc... Could it be that Jerry doesn't play AK because his mind is not in the game or doesn't look ready to play? Could the sporadic minutes actually be AK's fault? Do you think Jerry intentionally let's AK sit at the costs of wins? Jerry is known for a lot of things some good, some bad, but not having a relentless will to win is not one of his faults. AK is made of glass, AK is mentally soft, AK takes games off, why is it so hard to believe that he is marginalized due to his own poor attitude? It has taken me awile to remove the AK homer glasses from 2004 and realize that the guy is a bum. A bum with flashes none the less he will let us down.
InGameStrategy
Well-Known Member
Yes, but this could be said for any player/coach contribution to a player's PT. Part of Sloan's strategy has possibly been to keep AK's minutes reasonable so he doesn't wear down. This, too, is a sound strategy for any player; Kiri still averaged almost 30 MPG last year.
In this specific case, there have been games--I have been to some of them--where Sloan has kept AK out of the game in stretches when he should've been in there. Brewer in the game in Q4 alongside the matador defense of Boozer and/or Okur? Korver and Miles playing together down the stretch when Utah is ahead? Puhlease.
AK is no vocal leader, but I don't find Boozer's vapid verbal cheerleading to be much better if CB doesn't back it up with defense. (No credit for Booz's playing hard on offense; scoring is fun.)
I haven't found AK to go balls out, but his effort was OK for most of the year, and he was a significant contributor. He led the team in on-court/off-court +/- in 2008-2009, and he massively outproduced the opposing SF when he was on the court during the past season.
If Utah had had a healthy AK for all of the Laker series (he was still coming up to speed in his brief two-game cameo), it would have been good for a win or two, especially given that defense on Kobe was one of Utah's two biggest problems (the other one being the repeated strategic breakdown of putting Millsap and Boozer on the floor together for long periods of time). Again, if Artest gets the MLE on a Laker discount, Kirilenko is worth more than that on re-signing, if he meets or exceeds his recent performance, which will probably be easier with ball-hog Booze off the team and frontcourt teammates who actually try on D.
theNBAnerd
Well-Known Member
how many guys in the game can do EVERYTHING well. AK doesn't do anything GREAT, but he does everything well. he can play like a point guard and then turn around and guard the post. he can block shots, and then thread the perfect assist through traffic. he can score and rebound, defend inside and out, he has court vision and mental quickness that are unrivaled by anyone on the team not named "deron"... he is a huge variable that can provide whatever the jazz need on a given night or for a given opponent. deron's better than AK in absolute terms, but even deron can't say most of those things. AK is one of the five most versatile players in the league, sharing that list with guys like lamar odom and lebron james.
not that i'm surprised to hear you say that AK wouldn't make a huge difference... that right there is the tenet upon which the whole AK tragedy is founded; the propensity of AK's fans, teammates and coaches to underestimate the impact he could have, which is why nobody invests the time in maximizing his role.
you wanna play the chicken-and-egg game and that's fine. i'll just go back to my points about employee performance in ANY industry. part of my job title in my day job is employee engagement specialist, and i can point you to hundreds of studies that say engaged employees work harder, work smarter and get better results for their employer. employees who aren't appreciated or who don't feel like the job makes the best use of their abilities will get disengaged, which causes performance and results to drop, which causes leadership to single them out, which deepens disengagement, which further deteriorates performance, etc.
so was the chicken first or was the egg first? doesn't really matter to me. at the end of the day, AK's contribution needs to more closely match his ability level (like it did early this calendar year), and it seems like increased involvement/engagement is an easy way to unlock that.
Gyp Rosetti
Banned
Regarding your post to friendsinmyhead, I couldn't agree more.
Regarding your response to my post, yes he's versatile and is very good at many things. However, as a wing, imo, what we need him to be strongest at, as most NBA teams do for their wings, is 1) defending the studs, 2) having an ability to create his own shot off the dribble and in turn pull up or take it hard to the rim and either finish or get to the line, as well as 3) shoot from three and/or the deep 2. He does the first well and the latter two not so much. Great, he can pass. Great, he has vision. Great, he has talent. But he's not our point. Deron is. And that talent at 8-9M per, imo, will not help us get a ring. At that price tag, it will imo crush our chances by killing any chance we'll ever have and need to get a true defensive stalwart at the 5. I recognize how much he has meant and could mean to this team. But I think his ship has sailed. And after this year, I don't want him back unless it's at 5.5-7M per. Maybe, that's unreasonable but that's my stance.
Look at it this way. Next year, assuming we pick up Miles option, and assuming Bell is slated to make about 3M, we're already committed to about 57M for just seven players. Then what? We want to re-sign AK to about 7.5M (that's on the low end) to bring us to 64.5M for just eight players, thus giving us no flexibility to go after the 5 we need so badly? Listen, if we were able to do a S&T of Perkins or Nene for Okur first, and then re-sign AK at about 8M after, I'd be very, very excited. But re-signing AK quickly at too high a price, and hurting our chances to get a 5 when there are a lot out there next summer could **** us.
On the simplest level, is AK the 3rd cog in a wheel on a championship team? Perhaps, if the first two cogs are Wade and Lebron. But Deron and AJ are not elite players in the same class as Wade or Lebron. And thus, I don't see him being the 3rd option on our team if we want to get a ring and therefore feel we should not pay him as a 3rd option, or 8-9M annually as many on here have suggested.
Do you feel the need to defend Crylenko because he is from around the same parts as Fesenko? No one "marginalized" him by the way. He "marginalized' himself by not doing what the Jazz wanted him to do- in nterms of strength, conditioning, developing a jumpshot and so on. And his constant gambling on defense for blocks definitely didn't make him an intimidating lockdown defender either. Jazz have given him plenty of opportunities so far. Sloan even has a special deal in place to not scream at AK in public. Quite unlike Sloan to meloow down like that for the sake of a solitary player. In other words, AK has had his diaper put on by the coahcing staff these past few years.
And I repeat- find me one playoff series win in the last 4 years where AK was really critical and without him we would stand no chance. All the rest of your stats dont matter.
Not at all laughable, when he played ALL 82 games and ALL games in the playoffs and put up the same 10+ pts as AK did, for which you want to hand 8mil/yr to AK. I mean, THAT is laughable. And Wes was graded as the best defender by the Jazz coaching staff, not by some arbit stats you pulled out of 82games. He also had a better outside shooting percentage overall. And still, no one in their right minds would argue that Wes deserves 8 mil/yr. He is probably overpaid even at the mid-level.
when did I ever rant about the MLE? Quit misquoting when your argument gets weak. All I ever said was that it was highly debatable that AK deserves anything ABOVE the mid-level. And I stand by that. If 7-8 yr/mil is above mid-level then it is highly debatable and certainly not a no-brainer to me that AK should get that money.Anything above 8 mil is a no-brainer as far as letting him go. It is'nt even debatable.
A 30+ guy with 4 mediocre seasons, having an injury history and an over-reliance on athleticism(as against strength) should'nt be getting paid that much money to be the 5th option.
Even if he has a great season in his contract year.
And if he does have a great season this year he would still have not compensated for stealing 60+ mil from the Jazz these past 4 years. Forget about rewarding him with another lucrative contract.