That looks correct. We had 4 picks in 2027 before the Phoenix trade. Ours, Minnesota, Cleveland, And the Lakers. We traded the least favorable of the 3 not including the Lakers to Phoenix. The most favorable and the Lakers pick to Memphis. We get the middle pick of Ours, Minnesota and Clevelands pick in 2027
Jaren Jackson Jr. traded to the Jazz
- Thread starter MTS
- Start date
Because all those other teams have actual All-star and All-NBA players, most of them have MVP-calibre player. We don't. And we still have not seen vast majority of our players actually play winning basketball. We don't know how they will respond to the expectation of wins every single game... having to actually play, if not high level, at least high-effort defense every single game. This team has been bottom of the league defensively for 3-4 years now. I am not sure JJJ is the type to single-handledly raise the level of the defense like Rudy used to be able to. For example, Memphis' defense is middle of the road last 3 season - 15th this year, 10th the year before, 12th in '23-'24. He's a great defender... he's not Rudy Gobert.
Step-Back Lauri
Well-Known Member
We didn't give up what we gave up "just for JJJ", if that makes you feel a bit better
This trade brought back also two clear improvements on good contracts to our back court defense so the bench will be much better going into next season. I feel the Jazz absolutely will improve their defensive rating at least by ten spots and they probably add one or two guys at least more before the season starts.
Step-Back Lauri
Well-Known Member
JJJ doesn't have to raise the defensive floor single handedly, yo. Walker is coming back by next season, it seems Ace and Cody are progressing, yesterday's trade brought infocements to bench too, and Jazz still has the rest of this window, the possible first round pick and summer ahead. Even without those moves in the future, Jazz is already a much better equipped to put together a defense that is not a disaster.
What raises the level of our defense is not having 5-7 guys in rotation that dont belong on NBA court.
Its like you forgot we were tanking and playing "development" minutes all these years? In 2022-23 we were a .500 team before Conley trade, in 2023-24 we were a .500 team before the KO/Tech trades. In that latter season we actually played good defense as well for a month. Then we went absolutely dirty on the tanking stuff in 2024-25 and this year we have had 2-4 guys in rotation who arent on their rookie contracts.
I mean stop staring at stats so hard and you may notice the fact that we have played Brice, Cody, Flip, Collier, TH, WCJ and Ace (most of which average 20ish mpg), none of whom are winning basketball players. They are all net negatives, and their job is to be net negatives for us to keep the pick and hopefully develop into net positives.
Besides you forget the fact that team success (or lack of it) is imperative in determining who wins accolades. Take someone like Jaylen Brown and put him in Wizards and he will still put up the same numbers (maybe even better) but wont win any awards whatsoever. In Boston he is the finals MVP with multiple All-NBA and All-Star nods.
Lauri is perennial All-star quality, maybe even perennial All-NBA. Key is turning into one. JJJ has actually been selected in AS twice and won DPOY once.
OK, tell me where you expect us to rank next year if we don't get the pick? With all this development, with Kessler back and JJJ in the fold now. With some minimal additions in the off-season(because we won't have the capspace to get anyone higher level than MLE type players). Where do we rank in the West? Assume regular health luck for all teams... Do you expect us to be ahead of DEN or MIN or HOU or SAS or OKC? To me 6th seems like about the absolute best we can get. And what's more likely is that we will end up in the play ins.
I muted Boler over 5 years ago. Never once regretted doing so.
I will believe it when I see it. Walker has not been able to raise the level of this defense either. And neither were Ace or Cody... The hope is that when we get them all together they will suddenly gel into something good. "Not a disaster" is not good enough for what the more optimistic people think this team will be.
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I believe he's referring to the player participation policy. There are details here:
How the NBA's new rules on resting stars will work
The NBA is expected to implement new rules regarding when and how often teams can rest their healthy stars. How will this affect teams like the Clippers, Lakers and Warriors? And will it work?www.espn.com
If we dont get the pick we probably rank higher. If we get the pick, we have a rookie we need to put into rotation and that lowers our floor (but raises our eventual ceiling).
I said in some other thread that the best case scenario is that we fight for home court. I wont set a cap to that team as I think our 4th best player is gonna be better than that of any other team, but we have some depth issues we need to resolve before we reach our maximum potential.
However Key, Kessler and Ace are all great candidates to improve / level up, which might raise our ceiling further.