Jazz Sign Rudy Gay
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Keefe
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Keefe
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And Dennis. Sitting on his ****ing hands.
Udidthizz
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Who wouldn’t with such magnificent hand pads.
Handlogten's Heros
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Heres the thing on Gay... he could have mailed it in for SA over the last two years. He has adjusted his game and made it more modern... he also got even more committed to his body and has been in phenomenal shape. He isn't the collect a paycheck type. Nic Batum got in shape and engaged to play for the Clippers but dogged it in Charlotte... Rudy stuck it out in SA without being a turd. I have a lot of confidence that if he can stay healthy that this deal is going to be a bargain.
Udidthizz
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And if he’s a good friend of Mike’s he has to be an all around good dude too.
Year one, please.
Keefe
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So funny. I was picturing Joe today when thinking of Rudy. Rudy was never as good as Joe was. People forget. Joe was the #1 option on a playoff team that won a series a year or two. In any case, yeah, I was picturing him. And in their primes, Joe might have been better but Rudy is probably in better shape now than Joe was when we had him.
Game. Set. ****ing match.
Rudy in way better shape. But if we’re getting first year Joe, I also want a first year Thabo.
Keefe
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Ugh, I forgot about Thabo.
NAOS
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Not sure where to put this, or if it’s been talked about already. Seemed like I should put it in a thread where we’re discussing small-ball options.
this is from Walden’s sltrib article a few days ago
“In fact, even as Jazz fans and pundits keep mentioning how the team’s other acquisitions, Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall, give Utah some small-ball center options, Whiteside saw his addition as an indication that the team is eager to maintain the status quo when Gobert goes to the bench, noting that Snyder pitched him on the idea that “no other team is gonna have 48 minutes of rim-protection” like the Jazz would.”
RE: @Handlogten's Heros hope for next season
+
@infection and NAOS’ cynicism.
this is from Walden’s sltrib article a few days ago
“In fact, even as Jazz fans and pundits keep mentioning how the team’s other acquisitions, Rudy Gay and Eric Paschall, give Utah some small-ball center options, Whiteside saw his addition as an indication that the team is eager to maintain the status quo when Gobert goes to the bench, noting that Snyder pitched him on the idea that “no other team is gonna have 48 minutes of rim-protection” like the Jazz would.”
RE: @Handlogten's Heros hope for next season
+
@infection and NAOS’ cynicism.
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Color me skeptical, as well, regarding us going small-ball 5 as there seems to be this consensus that we'll experiment with this, despite no evidence suggesting this is the case other than the FO bringing in guys who could maybe do that (but as presently constituted that guy fits a role that could be magnified and perfected without ever playing the 5). The other end of this is that I don't believe that playing 5 out necessarily counters any of the issues we've had. The only reason 5-out destroyed us was because we, at first, ceded the 5th man at the perimeter. When that consistently happened, Quin's adjustment was for Rudy to play middle-ground in the mid-range, where he effectively was leaving the perimeter as unguarded as he would when playing near the basket, but now put himself into position that he couldn't recover on the perimeter blow-bys because we're still trying to funnel to him. Quin's largest failure here is both not allowing Rudy to correct and become a perimeter defender, thus having to adjust the defense to stay in front more, and also Quin being unable to punish small ball on the offensive end. We've long blamed Rudy for that, but he's only part of that equation. Would Chris Paul not be able to punish small ball with Rudy? Obviously a future HOFer is not the best example, but it's a quick one to say that not being able to punish this isn't exclusively a Rudy thing.
I was going to save a couple of these points for a thread I've been meaning to do for a couple months, but whatevs...
Our first failure with small ball was right after Kobe died and Houston didn't play anyone over 6'. We were on a huge roll at that point, winning like 18 of 20 games or something, and were excited to see us out-rebound them. Well, it was a failure. We thought Rudy would dominate offensively. He played 37 minutes and had 5 FGA. As this has consistently hurt us, Quin has shown no awareness of this. Yes, he's not going to be posting guys up and dunking over them. But when Earl Boykins is your 5, there are going to be some lob opportunities there. And it does not appear that it's because they're disrupting the lobs. We're not looking for them. That's not even on Don. Quin is supposed to be the fail safe on this.
And regarding Rudy on the perimeter, the 2019-2020 season we lost a home game against Minnesota where KAT killed us with 29 points in 33 minutes. He went 7/15 from deep, meaning he only scored 8 points from anywhere that wasn't the three point line. He was left open. Our next game was also against the Wolves, this time in Minnesota. The defensive strategy changed. Rudy was not kept by the basket. He played KAT straight up and on the perimeter. He shot 4/7 from deep, a great percentage, but got up less than half the attempts of the previous game and ended the game with 14 points. We won. Perhaps Quin will justify Rudy guarding a big guy on the perimeter who's been recognized as an all-star, but maybe he won't justify that against a guy who doesn't have as sexy of a name brand but will still drop 40+% on open threes. When the game calls for it, it's time to let Rudy shut down the guy killing us on the perimeter, and expect the team to pick up the slack.
Regarding the above, I don't see Rudy Gay playing the 5 fixing any of those issues other than the fact that, since he isn't the rim protector Rudy is, you'll have him guard the 5th guy out on the perimeter. But it still requires having the other 4 guys stay in front, and maybe not having Rudy there would motivate them (but probably not because we all saw what happened with Favors on the floor). But if that's a solution, why wouldn't having Rudy (Gobert) guarding the perimeter be an even better solution? We're creating a false dichotomy where we're asking which is better, Rudy by the basket with the 5th guy wide open bombing threes, or Rudy Gay guarding that guy on the perimeter. What about Rudy Gobert guarding that guy on the perimeter?
So the tl;dr is that I don't object to 48 minutes of rim protection and that's kinda what I expect. The bigger issue is Quin adjusting the scheme with those same guys, which he hasn't proved he could do, or that he's even aware of. I would say that Whiteside gives you a better option with post-play to punish small ball, but Quin even told him not to expect post-ups. I think that's fine to not post up a ton, but at least do it some. Let Whiteside play with all of our other shooters and let them do their things, but also allow Whiteside to bully small ball and don't be an idiot and pretend Muggsy Bogues isn't out there when someone like Ty Lue puts him in the post.
I just stumbled on this. I was looking at it for a couple minutes until I caught who the guy closest to Rudy was on points per shot allowed. Granted, he didn’t contest a lot of them, but interesting nonetheless. [in spoiler because a swears]:
Handlogten's Heros
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I am not sure what to believe. We have options now so that’s one step in the process.
Whitesides comments are telling. I do think when you are recruiting you don’t necessarily tell him that midway through the playoffs we will mothball you and go small. I want us to use the small ball enough in the regular season to be comfortable with the scheme… so that we can pull it out when we need it. It’s a playoff strategy and it’s not a defense thing… it’s very much an offensive strategy for when the game gets stuck in mud. Unless you have Draymond you can’t switch and protect the rim and run out small ball for 30 minutes plus.
Im still going to have hope we are better and more flexible. The pieces are just better IMO and provide Quin options… I don’t think another team is as equipped as the clips to do what they did… I think Rudy being pulled out of the paint can happen in a variety of ways so it’s obviously a concern going forward.
TLDR-IDK… shrug… fingers crossed?
NAOS
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That graph is ****ing crazy