Zach Lowe: NBA Awards - Utah Jazz

[BabyPeterzz]

https://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-awards-ballot-part-1-in-praise-of-the-individual/

MIP

Most Improved Player

1. Rudy Gobert
2. Jimmy Butler
3. Klay Thompson

Ah, the award 50 players could win depending on your preferred criteria. Some voters lean away from first-round picks in their second and third seasons, since those players should improve as they gain experience and move up in the rotation. But Gobert’s leap from afterthought to one-man defensive wrecking crew, with some ball skills thrown in just for kicks, is among the biggest one-season jumps we’ll ever see. The record of 7-footers who logged fewer than 500 minutes in their rookie seasons, as Gobert did, was not encouraging. It is mostly a list of stiffs who flamed out fast.

Gobert instead played five times as many minutes, tripled his assist rate with some nifty passing on the pick-and-roll, cut his turnovers, and improved his shooting from both the field and the foul line — all in addition to emerging as the league’s scariest rim protector. You know how teams in practice have assistant coaches hold up huge pads to simulate the presence of shot-blockers at the rim? Multiple teams have casually mentioned to me that they refer to those pads as “Gobert” — as in, “LOOK OUT FOR GOBERT!” The French Rejection got better at everything at an astonishing rate. What a story.

https://grantland.com/the-triangle/nba-awards-ballot-part-2-putting-in-a-team-effort/

All NBA

Favors and Hayward are legitimate candidates for one of those third-team forward spots — and perhaps even for Griffin’s second-team spot behind Aldridge.1 They’ve been really good on both ends, and Hayward carried Utah’s offense without much help from any perimeter threat until Rodney Hood emerged over the last 25 games.

Jazz fans might gripe over Leonard’s inclusion on the third team, since he will only finish with 64 games played. But Leonard when healthy was one of the 15 best players in the league, and one of the 10 best over the last two months of the season. He transformed into a monster and single-handedly elevated the Spurs back into the championship conversation upon his return from injury. I can’t quite explain it, but durability matters a bit more to me in giving out individual awards — it was my reason for choosing Draymond Green over Leonard as defensive player of the year — than in selecting the All-NBA teams. Within reasonable playing-time boundaries, I want the All-NBA slots to reflect which players put their stamp on a particular season most decisively.

I wanted to reward a Utah guy, especially since the forward position will have at least one more lock next season when Kevin Durant (presumably) returns at full health, but there wasn’t anyone I felt comfortable removing. Certainly not Millsap, who is simply one of the finest all-around players in basketball.

All-Defense

Second Team
G John Wall
G Danny Green
F Tony Allen
F Anthony Davis
C Rudy Gobert

All-Rookie

Second Team
Marcus Smart
Jusuf Nurkic
Bojan Bogdanovic
Langston Galloway
Rodney Hood

Hood is barely going to crack the 50 games/1,000 minutes threshold, but he’s hit 36 percent from deep and done some nifty work as a secondary ball-handler — and even as a first option at times over the last 10 days, with both Hayward and Favors hurt. And he’s done that as part of a solid team still trying to win games.

 

[Jazz4ever]

Lowe loves the Jazz, let's get him a job here as an analytic.

 

[Ferguson_Mellochill]

Didn't Trey make 1st Team All Rookie last year? Kind of a weak draft class...

 

[The Midnight]

Haha.. this big is GOLD.

You know how teams in practice have assistant coaches hold up huge pads to simulate the presence of shot-blockers at the rim? Multiple teams have casually mentioned to me that they refer to those pads as “Gobert” — as in, “LOOK OUT FOR GOBERT!” The French Rejection got better at everything at an astonishing rate. What a story.

 

[Just Ted]

Haha.. this big is GOLD.

This makes me happy. That's not an easy thing to do now days.

 

[Stoked]

Jazz getting some love.

Perhaps Jazz land an all star spot next year along with COY, DPOY, 6th man and MIP?

Don't worry about the flavor of my Kool-aid

 

[addictionary]

Utah Jazz are going through the mental transformation I was striving for them to do.

I ****ing love this ****.




I

THIS!

 

[Siro]

^^ ew.

 

[Greasy84]

^^^^^^^^^ This is what has been missing for so many years!! This team has it!

 

[NAOS]

Don't worry about the flavor of my Kool-aid

...why... what did you put in it?

 

[Jeffrey32]

MIP is probably Draymond Green.