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What can we take away from this season?

Will remember this season as the lowest season in terms of games watch for me. I watch less than 40 games this year, 20 from Minny who are not good enough to give me some excitement, 15 from Jazz who were so bad that i fall asleep almost each time and 5 from Cavs, probably the most exciting i have seen this year. Hope we got Flagg and start again to play basketball next season.
 
Will remember this season as the lowest season in terms of games watch for me. I watch less than 40 games this year, 20 from Minny who are not good enough to give me some excitement, 15 from Jazz who were so bad that i fall asleep almost each time and 5 from Cavs, probably the most exciting i have seen this year. Hope we got Flagg and start again to play basketball next season.
Also the lowest number of games watched by me in decades. I think I watched about 50 jazz games so far this year.
 
Just a fun fact... Stephon Castle is currently number one on the NBA Rookie Ladder rankings. His rookie stats are very closely in line with Keyonte's rookie stats. Keyonte has only taken small steps forward in his second year- so he could regress or break out going forward. I just thought it was nice to see that our 16th pick last year looked as good as the top rookie this year (although defense is not fully factored into that comparison). It is also nice to see that Isaiah and Flip are both now in the top 10 of the rookie rankings.
 
Our off season free agent signings seemed goofy. I'm not sure what Svi, Eubanks and Mills brought to the table. I realize the sweet sweet 2nd round picks they turned into and have heard Ainge's JZ's and Hardy's bloviations as to the company line rationale but these guys just weren't very good and am afraid our youngsters caught bad basketball cooties from them. I'm not sure the Jazz would have been ahead to keep Yurt7, Luka S, Bazely, Kenny or THT on one year minimum deals. Maybe Ainge was afraid these guys would screw up the tank.
 
What I take away from this season is that we actually have a long, LONG way to go. We basically have 0 good, well-rounded players. Everyone is basically only effective on one side of the floor if effective at all, most of those players are neutral defenders at best, and we are missing any mentionable connective tissue. We don’t even know if we have any 3&D guys or glue guys. Our only good ballhandler/playmaker can’t shoot, our second-best passer is probably a rookie big who can’t currently defend.

That the Jazz actually suck should come as no surprise when you look at the record, but I think a lot of us have been laboring under a delusion if we think we’re going to make any real noise within the next five years unless we get insanely lucky.

I had some thoughts on this post, but hadn't had time until now to really respond.

First of all, I think it's pretty clear that we are not as bad as our record. About a month ago there was a graphic posted on Jazzfanz with number of games lost due to injury and the Jazz were 2nd or 3rd, with about 9 games lost at that time. I'm guessing by the end of the year we will have about 12 games lost due to "injury" (aka sitting our good players). That would put us at about the 8th worst team in the league which feels about right. This doesn't take away from your larger point, but I do think there is a significant difference between where we are in the standings and how good this team is as currently constructed.

Secondly, I don't think we always take in to consideration how beneficial it is for players to play with good players and how detrimental it is to play with bad players. Rookies and sophomores are expected to be bad/detrimental players and so as we have been prioritizing development/optimizing our draft pick it makes sense to play our rookies and sophomores as much as possible. However, because of this it is difficult to say how good/bad our players/team is because they have had to share the court with bad players so frequently. Also, because of this it can be easier than expected to be, "competitive" by just deprioritizing development and surround the team with actual NBA players. Detroit this year, and Houston last year are good examples of a team going from bottom of the league to a playoff team by just adding a few players and limiting, "development" time. If the goal is just to get to the playoffs, I think that could happen within two years.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly I completely agree with what I think your main point is. True contending teams are built around elite offenses and elite defenses, and we are extremely far away from that. In my opinion a great team has at most one weak link on offense or defense at a time (preferably 0) and our team as currently constructed has a long way to go. If you look at who I think are the two best teams in the league, Boston and OKC, then you can see the type of team we would need to become to get to contending status. Even if we get Flagg, we are so many players away from being at that point.

I just don't think the front office is committed to building a team like that. They keep drafting and putting significantly development time in to players who are very unlikely to be positives on both sides of the ball. I guess I've resigned myself to the fact that the Jazz are not building the type of team that I think has a real chance to contend AND I've grown sick of tanking, which has led me to be ok with them just trying to build a good team that can make the playoffs with hopefully guys that I like to cheer for. With that lower standard I'm ok with a lot of the guys on the team and to some extent, just want to see us start playing competitive basketball again.

Apologies for the long post.
 
Y'all ever think about all the Jazz fans who are going to die this year? Like this is the last Jazz team they will see.

If I die during a tank phase I'm gonna be pissed
Fine, we will take you off the list...

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That if you put your mind to something you can achieve your goals
 
That the Utah Jazz finally won at something! ..... and it could be 2 things this year!
 
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