Weren't you the one who stated that he did improve? I was merely disagreeing with you (because it's what I believe). Do you really have any "evidence" toward his defensive improvement? Even if he has improved, it isn't enough to be a legit center. Amare Stoudemire can show you how many rings a good-scoring center without convincing defense can garner you.
This is for you to answer! You made the claim first. I only called B.S. on your claim--and have still provided more support--however incomplete--for my position than you have for yours.
I replied a week later because I have better things to do than to reply to your unsubstantiated claims.
Unfortunately, the deficient defense of Jefferson, Boozer, Okur, and others--and Sloan's fly in your face of your claim, which you still haven't provided proof for, besides a blanket, general statement that was definitely not true during the Boozakur era, C.J. Miles' "career", and especially in Sloan's last year.
By "pushed defense," you must be referring to the post-game interviews when he occasionally grumbled about bad player defense. Unfortunately for you, talk and action are two different things. During the past six years especially, defense has been insufficiently enforced; his use of Boozer and Okur (and underuse of backup bigs who either could defend or had the potential to defend) nullifies your unsubstantiated statement. Rarely (if ever) were players benched for not effectively defending (see also an aging Raja Bell, not just the frontcourt matadors), and when solutions to at least specific defensive problems were identified (i.e., Araujo on Duncan, Fesenko on the Gasols, etc.), they were barely used. Nobody was suggesting that these backups should've been used more than maybe 10 to 20 minutes per game, but they barely saw the court and were not developed further, even when they were a superior choice in their undeveloped state.<------- Is this a joke??? How old are you? Did you just start watching the Jazz?? Coach Sloan was, has, and forever will be known as a guy who pushed defense. Not just by Jazz fans, but NBA enthusiasts both local and nationally. LOL, YOU MUST BE KIDDING??? Your either 12 years old or stupid! Jerry Sloan is known by anyone that has ever followed any team in basketball for more than 24 hours, as a hard nosed defensive coach. hahahaha. If you wanted to bring this argument up and have anyone listen to it, you shouldve done it in the late 70's (You may have had a shot in hell at defending yourself). My God! Whats next?? Let me guess, LIL WAYNE IS A BETTER RAPPER THAN 2PAC??? lol. You have a great future as a comedian, just pretend that your the stupidest person to walk the earth (like you did on this post) and you will have no problem!!!!
Goes to show you that not everyone who is draped in a BYU uniform during college is a future NBA superstar. Let go of Araujo his 3 year NBA career has been over for 5 years now. If he was a Stockton, Malone, or a Sloan, I could justify the bragging for him.
... plus he pretty much slapped the lakers the last time we played them! you remember that don't you!?
Hayward is going to be much better than you think! Serious. Did you watch the last 3 weeks of the season when he finally found his groove; go check out his Game logs for last season. it is obvious that he really started to understand what he needed to do to be successful. If you think Hayward is going to be anything less than a bona fide on the bubble allstar, then you're wring my good friend
28 games is too little to prove (or disprove) a player, especially a big man; his history with Toronto does not necessarily mean that he could not have been more effective in specific roles with Utah.
Didn't prove your point, then, because I didn't say that he was our savior, although I maintain that he could've helped the Jazz win an extra playoff game or two by strategically deploying him for maybe 15 or 20 minutes to wear Duncan down. It's easy to envision a situation where Hoffa neutralizing Duncan could be more valuable than the scoring but poor defense (and help defense) from the alternative (likely Boozer, etc.) who would still play more minutes and the rest of the game (assuming that Araujo didn't demonstrate more convincing evidence of further effectiveness beyond that).
The recent NBAPA lockout negotiations have further confirmed that there is not necessarily a correlation between on-court skill and off-court smarts.And as far as Fesenko, I used to think he was under played as well. That was until I partied with him not once, but 3 times. And I cant see any way that this guy can chew gum and walk at the same time. Not saying spending a total of maybe 30 minutes with him gives me any idea of his playing skills, but was more than enough to learn that we had a true idiot on our hands. He was the stupidest person I had conversed with up until now.
Not much to brag about, and it's about as relevant to me that Araujo went to BYU as that Fesenko was from the Ukraine.
You're certainly entitled to think that way, One Brow, if you like.
