Hill and Hayward: The Package Deal

[SCS]

You detailed my worst fear. If we re-sign Hill to 25-30 million over 4-5 years we stand no chance of winning a championship with Hayward/Gobert. Unless we hit another miracle of a draft pick like we did with Gobert. The playoff ending we got this year is what we'll get every year. We CAN'T give Hill that kind of money/years to watch him decline as he ages and play 40-50 games a year.

 

[fishonjazz]

The playoff ending we got this year is what we'll get every year.

I disagree.
We won 51 games with the worst health luck possible and 5 rotation guys playing as bad as they probably will for their whole career.
Give me health and a bit of improvement from burks, favors, hood, lyles, and X (almost guaranteed to happen) and I figure we get a top 3 seed and avoid the warriors until later in the playoffs.

Not to mention improvement from hayward, gobert and quin plus better chemistry and better knowledge of the system from the new guys (hill and JJ)
Plus a couple first round picks.

Same roster next year doesn't equal same result as this year.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

If signing Jeremy Evans to a deal would keep Hayward on, I'd totally do it.

 

[franklin]

I'm up for continually being a team that is banging on the door trying to take that last step. But if they just want to be the 4th seed with no aspirations of higher than I say no thanks.

Yeah, it's kinda weird this culture would root for failure. I guess the dwindling Jazz fan base was so tired of the rebuild (after being spoiled) that mediocrity is okay. That's what I've heard as general consensus here anyway.

 

[franklin]

I disagree.
We won 51 games with the worst health luck possible and 5 rotation guys playing as bad as they probably will for their whole career.
Give me health and a bit of improvement from burks, favors, hood, lyles, and X (almost guaranteed to happen) and I figure we get a top 3 seed and avoid the warriors until later in the playoffs.

Not to mention improvement from hayward, gobert and quin plus better chemistry and better knowledge of the system from the new guys (hill and JJ)
Plus a couple first round picks.

Same roster next year doesn't equal same result as this year.

Blake Griffin.

 

[fishonjazz]

Blake Griffin.

Rudy gobert, Gordon hayward, Derrick favors, george hill, Alec burks.

Oh and iirc we beat them when they had Blake Griffin playing and gobert was out.

 

[ncoloradojazz]

No one is going to give a 35 year old who is not a star a 4 year contract

It's pretty clear after the exit interviews that Hill and Hayward are most likely a package deal as far as a return to Utah is concerned. While I would be fine with signing Hill to a 2-year deal, I don't see any scenario in which he signs for less than 4 years. IMO, you don't win championships signing a very good, but not great player to $25-30 million/year deal in which he'll be 35 before you get out from under it. That being said, if Gordon wants Hill in Utah, the Jazz have to do whatever it takes to retain him. It's more than just the prospect of hitting reset on the rebuild again. Losing Hayward to a bigger market after all of the time, effort, and development it has taken to get to this point would just be a monumental let down for a franchise that needs to retain it's homegrown talent now more than ever.

So while I suppose there's a chance Dennis Lindsey can sell Hayward into signing with a promise of a big name acquisition that's not named Hill, I'm starting to make my peace with the fact that we'll be watching a "Big 3" of Hayward-Gobert-Hill for the next 4-5 years. My concern is that even if these moves are absolutely necessary, Utah is committing itself to 4-seed purgatory for the next 5 years. We all know for certain that a roster built around those 3 cannot topple the Warriors as they are currently constituted. My worry is that even if/when GS loses 1 of their Big 4, Utah still isn't good enough to get past them. I also have my doubts about how we will fare against the Kawhi led Spurs and Harden led Rockets as those teams move towards the future.

Assuming that this is our "Big 3" going forward, what exactly is our ceiling? If this is how it plays out, now more than ever Lindsay needs to get aggressive with the other players we have on this roster. It will be time to push the envelope and see what varying combinations of Favors, Hood, Burks, Exum, and draft picks can get us. I'm trying to stay positive but I have this nagging feeling that Utah is in the familiar position of locking itself into being good, but not great, with little wiggle room to change anything.

 

[SCS]

I disagree.
We won 51 games with the worst health luck possible and 5 rotation guys playing as bad as they probably will for their whole career.
Give me health and a bit of improvement from burks, favors, hood, lyles, and X (almost guaranteed to happen) and I figure we get a top 3 seed and avoid the warriors until later in the playoffs.

Not to mention improvement from hayward, gobert and quin plus better chemistry and better knowledge of the system from the new guys (hill and JJ)
Plus a couple first round picks.

Same roster next year doesn't equal same result as this year.

So we'll get eliminated in the western conference finals instead of western conference semifinals. Same result to me. My goal is championships not a few western conference finals appearances. I understand we were hurt this year, but we were last year too. At some point it becomes an excuse. Can we really count on being healthy next year when this group has never been healthy? I don't think so. Can we really win a championship if they are? I still think we're a third star away.

 

[BabyPeterzz]

Hill fit perfect when healthyish. We spent a lottery pick on him already. Hayward loves him.

Choice obv, lest i remind you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJRiEf9eTvY

 

[franklin]

Rudy gobert, Gordon hayward, Derrick favors, george hill, Alec burks.

Oh and iirc we beat them when they had Blake Griffin playing and gobert was out.

Fair point and obvious retort and a given. I just saw the writing on the wall after game 2. Blake was destroying us after Doc Rivers' game one blunder. I would be shocked if these guys got out of round one. You can insert the obvious Rudy comment if you'd like, as I saw a ton of offensive and defensive plays that would not have been in the Clippers favor had Rudy been in, but without him they were dominating so badly that the Jazz had no chance before Blake went down. The games were close even after he went down.

 

[BabyPeterzz]

Fair point and obvious retort and a given. I just saw the writing on the wall after game 2. Blake was destroying us after Doc Rivers' game one blunder. I would be shocked if these guys got out of round one. You can insert the obvious Rudy comment if you'd like, as I saw a ton of offensive and defensive plays that would not have been in the Clippers favor had Rudy been in, but without him they were dominating so badly that the Jazz had no chance before Blake went down. The games were close even after he went down.

Truth. Joe Johnson saved our asses that series.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Fair point and obvious retort and a given. I just saw the writing on the wall after game 2. Blake was destroying us after Doc Rivers' game one blunder. I would be shocked if these guys got out of round one. You can insert the obvious Rudy comment if you'd like, as I saw a ton of offensive and defensive plays that would not have been in the Clippers favor had Rudy been in, but without him they were dominating so badly that the Jazz had no chance before Blake went down. The games were close even after he went down.

Rudy and Griffin played the same amount of minutes in the playoffs. The big difference is that LAC got a healthy Blake for those minutes and we had a hobbled Gobert. If we had a healthy Gobert for the whole series I am not sure that series goes any where close to game 7 with us easily winning. It is hard to know for sure. But game 2 was close and if we had Gobert in that game I think we win. Same could be said of game 3. Griffin dominated us the games he played until he hurt his team in the 4th quarter. It could be argued we would have won the game he went down in. He hurt his team in the games he was healthy in the 4th for, why would that trend not continue? I know you want to look for the negative but we won that series much much more hobbled and injured than the Clippers. We had Hill, Hood, Favors, Gobert, Neto and Burks all dealing with injuries to some extent that series. They had Griffin and Rivers dealing with stuff.