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Still A Harsh Reality... Players not wanting to play in Utah

JimLes said:
I get that he grew up sheltered and that celebrity also shields you from all kinds of stuff, but come on. It's possible for people to worship a black athlete and still be prejudiced against black people.
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Yeah. I guess it makes total sense to drag him for such appalling naivety.
 
In a country with a long history of racism against blacks, and a state (and team) with a history of racial issues, justified or not, a 19 year old black kid wouldn’t want to play in Utah if given a choice, 9 times out of 10. There’s nothing confusing about this. He wants to fit in and go clubbing til 5am and that ain’t SLC.
 
Sean said:
I think they face a similar stigma as SLC to be honest.

But the big difference is that Oklahoma City is 14% black and Milwaukee is almost 40% Black.

Salt Lake? 3%.

I do think that plays a role. We have the smallest Black population of any NBA city. Even Portland (6%) and Phoenix (7%) have a larger Black population - while also having a larger urban area overall.

And that's just Salt Lake (200,000 people). In Salt Lake County (over one-million), it's actually a smidge worse overall (2%).
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I live in 27% black. The way they all talk about Utah....it's like a running joke for all ages. I don't think anything will change till that 3% goes up and word of mouth n such.
 
Rubashov said:
Who gives a ****? First 7 years of a players career they have no choice where they play and if as a professional athlete in your mid twenties you priorities the party over winning well you can **** off.
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1. Five years, not seven. Players can simply sign their QOs and eff off after the last year of their rookie deal.
2. Agents can always tell teams to not draft their clients. This is pretty common actually.
3. They can also request teams trade them for whatever reason. This is also pretty common nowadays.
4. The issues Don went through in Utah with its political climate would be draining on anyone in a similar situation. His priorities were not running up credit limits like Harden on a Houston strip club bender.
 
HermanG said:
Didnt all those All-stars sign an extension here? Also, didnt we trade 3 of those 4 for pretty good hauls? How do those things correlate with us "not being able to retain talent"?

Implicating that no one wants to play/stay here is weird considering we are one of the top franchizes in all-time win%. Sure there are no banners in the rafters, but not because we havent been able to build good teams... even post S&M era.
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I never said no one wants to play/stay here. Please do not twist my words. I said it's a bigger challenge to get that all star talent to remain here. I mapped out exactly how long those players have remained with the Jazz in response to someone who said other NBA teams have won titles with players they've drafted. Those teams had players remain with their franchise longer, on average, than the players Utah drafted who turned into All Stars. In three of four instances, with Gobert being the lone exception, the player created a situation that made a trade the most likely option (Williams and Mitchell) or refused to re-sign with the Jazz (Hayward).

But to expand on that, beyond Mitchell, none of these players are what I think anyone would consider championship-caliber. And maybe even Mitchell isn't. Certainly Gobert isn't and Hayward wasn't and Williams career slowly regressed after leaving Utah. And you could even make the claim that Mitchell, as exceptional of an exception he is anyway, still isn't in the realm of the other recent NBA champions who spurred this conversation.

Why is that important? Because if Utah is struggling, and yes, I think they've struggled, keeping top-level-ish talent here for a prolonged period (with Gobert the only exception), someone truly big - like MVP big - probably is going to be a challenge to keep here too.

You can disagree and that's fine. I appreciate your optimism. But of the All Stars who've made it to Salt Lake via the draft post-Stockton and Malone era, three of the four clearly didn't want to remain in Salt Lake for whatever reason. The last two, Mitchell and Hayward, were seen at certain times, almost untouchable cornerstones to the franchise. I think that's a red flag. If you don't, that's awesome. And I hope you're right.
 
JimLes said:
I never understood this line of thinking. Part of it is that my family is used to being a small minority and we're fine with it. My gentile father grew up in a Catholic family in what had been a predominantly Muslim area for 500 years. My maternal ancestors have spent the last 2000 years in diaspora. I actually think I like it. I don't know how I'd handle living in Israel, for example.

But the other part of that is that I don't understand what impact this has on an average NBA player. Detroit is 80% black and I do not for a second believe that any Pistons players live in predominantly black parts of Detroit or Detroit Metro. Based on where the Jazz players tend to live around SLC, I assume they live in the whitest places imaginable. I also find it difficult to believe that the higher the black population of the city is, the lower the racism you face. A white police officer doesn't care if the city is 5% black or 50% black when pulling you over for driving a "suspiciously" expensive car. What would be the benefit of living in a city with a larger black population for someone who's a multi-millionaire from the start?
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I mean, you can deny it all you want but there's a reason SLC has the reputation it does.

I'm assuming you're white (Jewish, I'm guessing, in the US). You've probably lived your entire life in a city where white people made up at least a huge chunk of the population.

I don't think anyone on this forum really knows what it's like to be 3% of a population when it comes to skin color - at least on a consistent basis. Maybe the LDSers experienced it on their two-year mission but not in a realm of daily living that you'd expect from someone who actually lives and interacts in the area. You know, that stands out. It's not religion. I grew up Catholic in Salt Lake City. Catholics make up roughly 5% of the state's population, so just slightly more than the percent of Blacks in Salt Lake City. The difference is that if I'm out doing stuff, it's very unlikely you'll know I grew up Catholic. Unless you saw me at Mass or maybe I had a rosary or I was refusing to eat meat on Fridays ... but there's not a lot of tells there.

If all Catholics were a different color, though, I think I'd stand out waaaaaaaay more than I do now.

And I would probably find that a bit tough at first. Maybe I'm able to overcome it and it's not a big deal. But I don't know how many times I've heard jokes from locals who say when they see a Black person out and about, they assume it's a member of the Jazz.

The difference between Atlanta and Salt Lake is that if you're Black in Salt Lake, you're standing out. Yeah, you're probably standing out in Atlanta too as a celebrity but it's different when 50% of the population is also Black. You have that culture that doesn't exist in places like Utah.

There is a very limited Black culture here.

I absolutely think that can play a factor in whether a player wants to settle down in their early 20s here in Salt Lake.

You might not and that's great. But I think the proof is in the pudding. Why else does Salt Lake consistently score high on NBA Players' worst NBA cities?

THIS from 1992!

www.deseret.com

SALT LAKE SCORES HIGH ON `WORST CITIES' LIST OF MANY NBA PLAYERS

Considering all 27 cities in the NBA, there are some fine candidates for the worst place in the league. There's always Cleveland, everyone's favorite urban joke. Washington has that shocking murder rate. And there's always Detroit. Enough said. But the worst city to visit in the NBA? At...
www.deseret.com www.deseret.com

Does that mean Utah is never ever destined to keep talent here? No. I just think it's going to be a bit more difficult and their postseason flameouts probably aren't helping.
 
Sean said:
I never said no one wants to play/stay here. Please do not twist my words. I said it's a bigger challenge to get that all star talent to remain here. I mapped out exactly how long those players have remained with the Jazz in response to someone who said other NBA teams have won titles with players they've drafted. Those teams had players remain with their franchise longer, on average, than the players Utah drafted who turned into All Stars. In three of four instances, with Gobert being the lone exception, the player created a situation that made a trade the most likely option (Williams and Mitchell) or refused to re-sign with the Jazz (Hayward).

But to expand on that, beyond Mitchell, none of these players are what I think anyone would consider championship-caliber. And maybe even Mitchell isn't. Certainly Gobert isn't and Hayward wasn't and Williams career slowly regressed after leaving Utah. And you could even make the claim that Mitchell, as exceptional of an exception he is anyway, still isn't in the realm of the other recent NBA champions who spurred this conversation.

Why is that important? Because if Utah is struggling, and yes, I think they've struggled, keeping top-level-ish talent here for a prolonged period (with Gobert the only exception), someone truly big - like MVP big - probably is going to be a challenge to keep here too.

You can disagree and that's fine. I appreciate your optimism. But of the All Stars who've made it to Salt Lake via the draft post-Stockton and Malone era, three of the four clearly didn't want to remain in Salt Lake for whatever reason. The last two, Mitchell and Hayward, were seen at certain times, almost untouchable cornerstones to the franchise. I think that's a red flag. If you don't, that's awesome. And I hope you're right.
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I didnt twist your words. You implied that the star caliber players dont want to be here in a thread that is titled to imply that no one wants to be here. You said:
Sean said:
It's about retaining that talent so eventually you get that NBA run. Utah hasn't been able to do that since the S&M days.
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I merely pointed out that out of the 4 players you listed, we chose to trade away 3 and got good returns on all of them. Hayward is the only one who jumped the ship.

The Rudy/Donovan era would have easily outlasted over 10 years with the contracts they had but our FO was overhauled and the new FO decided to pull the plug.

It was 100% a choice not to retain those two, which has nothing to do with us being "unable" to do that.
 
Sean said:
I mean, the Millers sold the Jazz in the fall of 2020. I doubt it was a deal that happened quickly (something like that doesn't) - it's hard for me to believe in a few months that the pandemic raged, that they became so destitute they needed to sell the Jazz. There was definitely more at play and I guarantee they were looking to get out of the NBA game long before we even knew what COVID was.
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They sold because they didn't really care about basketball and they got a **** ton of money. It was incredibly clear Greg and Gail weren't about it
 
HermanG said:
I didnt twist your words. You implied that the star caliber players dont want to be here in a thread that is titled to imply that no one wants to be here. You said:

I merely pointed out that out of the 4 players you listed, we chose to trade away 3 and got good returns on all of them. Hayward is the only one who jumped the ship.

The Rudy/Donovan era would have easily outlasted over 10 years with the contracts they had but our FO was overhauled and the new FO decided to pull the plug.

It was 100% a choice not to retain those two, which has nothing to do with us being "unable" to do that.
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Donovan was gone dude. Don't kid yourself
 
The reality is there are only a handful of teams that are first choice locations for 90% of the league.


I think the previous regime and ownership leaned more into the family friendly side to hopefully attract and retain veterans (which hilariously did not keep Gordon Hayward). Seems like Smith/Danny are less focused on that and more just about making Utah look cooler.


The reality is that Utah just isn't most people's vibe. And even if a player did like Utah, everyone knows Utah's perception so they are going to leverage that in contract negotiations.

And no one has even brought up the massive financial implications of getting drafted to Utah vs a major market. We just saw Austin Reaves get a 7 figure shoe deal for being Joe Ingles for a half season.

When Donovan got his major shoe deal I thought maybe he could break the mold and be Utah's first successful marketable player. He ended up being kind of milquetoast as a personality though. I doubt his shoes sold well nationally and I assume he probably blames the Utah market for that (Adidas treated him as an after thought after the ROTY campaign despite having a signature shoe. Kind of funny that I originally thought the deal was good for Utah as it meant it was possible to overcome the market, but the reality is that Adidas just signed him with the idea of eventually getting home out). I also assume his Adidas reps were 100% behind the New York rumors as they are the party with the most incentive for him to get to NYK.
 
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I think a guy like Clarkson is cool in Utah because he already had the LA experience. He is friends with the Kardashians already. He has all the celebrity connections to the big time parties and events.
 
JimLes said:
But the other part of that is that I don't understand what impact this has on an average NBA player. Detroit is 80% black and I do not for a second believe that any Pistons players live in predominantly black parts of Detroit or Detroit Metro. Based on where the Jazz players tend to live around SLC, I assume they live in the whitest places imaginable. I also find it difficult to believe that the higher the black population of the city is, the lower the racism you face. A white police officer doesn't care if the city is 5% black or 50% black when pulling you over for driving a "suspiciously" expensive car. What would be the benefit of living in a city with a larger black population for someone who's a multi-millionaire from the start?
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Dear lord this might be some of the most ignorant **** I've read.
 
Also my favorite irony among the Utah/Players relationship thing is that the most Utah star Utah has ever had is the one they shunned the most.

Deron Williams is Utah through and through. He loves his golf, MMA, and white women. He came back to Utah to leave his wife and get the most basic Utah IG looking 30 something possible
 
Rubashov said:
Who gives a ****? First 7 years of a players career they have no choice where they play and if as a professional athlete in your mid twenties you priorities the party over winning well you can **** off.
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I mean, ideally you want your players happy. We saw the effects of what bad locker-room does to a team in teh Dallas series.
 
Damn Cy, this is a very important topic to you apparently.
 
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