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The Missing Piece

I expect Crowder to have an even better year next year. He struggled in Cleveland, and was a mixed bag for us. Definitely helped at times, and had some really good moments, but struggled a little too.

He's going to have a full off season to prepare for our offense, and get even more comfortable with the system.

It's a contract year.

He wants to be here.

All of these things add up for a recipe for success. I'm expecting a really good year from him.
This.

We got a Crowder that was coming out of a bad situation, wasn't used to working very hard, and didn't know the offense or defense really, and yet he contributed fairly well (better than he did in Cleveland, worse than he did in Boston). I expect with a summer to get in better shape and work on his shot, and more time learning the system we will see accelerated improvement. I think once he gets what we are trying to do we will see less of the maverick moves he made last season and stuff more in the flow of the offense, and his D, which was pretty solid, will only get better as he understands how our defense runs better.
 
and this might be all we really do.

with rubio and thabo its possible we win game 4 and or 5 against houston, and make it a seven game series. game 5 was ripe for the plucking if we didnt lose Donovan, and the aforementioned players.

i really wish we could have seen our full strength line up against Houston to better gauge where we are at. are we really that far off?
This. Even just having Rubio would have made this a different series. The way Rubio had been playing up to the point he got injured would have forced CP3 to defend him. As it was he didn't have to do much but roam on the defensive end, and only really had to put forth much effort on D when switched onto DM. Force CP3 and Harden to play D the entire offensive possession and this is a different series entirely. Add Thabo into the mix (provided he fit well with what we were doing, remember we made our big run with him out), and we had another big strong defender to put on Harden with 6 more fouls to give. I really think at full strength we could at least have matched Houston, considering we had game 5 in our reach. We would likely still have lost, but it would have gone at least to 6, maybe 7 games. And we would have had an outside chance to beat them. Take some of the play-making pressure off DM and let him do what he does best and we would have seen a few 30+ point games to boot. Would have been a different series.
 
But in the end I am actually glad the Houston series went the way it did. Our chances of running the gauntlet, even if we beat Houston, were slim at best. And I think that DM learned a great deal being forced into the role of facilitator. Knowing his personality, he will examine the game films for hours on end and come back a far more capable play-maker, and likely figure out how to break down the D better and find the open man or find his own shot. This kind of thing will only make him better. He is like the terminator, learning from the enemy and relentlessly pushing until he crushes you.
 
Replace Dante Exum with Nigel Williams-goss. Dante is ok put is way too much of a ball fumbler and turns it over way too much. For the 55th pick in 2017 he is doing very well in Serbia. This saves about 10M for next year plus probably Jazz get a better player that doesn't lose the ball so much. Helps with cap space for even another key missing piece.
 
Replace Dante Exum with Nigel Williams-goss. Dante is ok put is way too much of a ball fumbler and turns it over way too much. For the 55th pick in 2017 he is doing very well in Serbia. This saves about 10M for next year plus probably Jazz get a better player that doesn't lose the ball so much. Helps with cap space for even another key missing piece.
lol ok
 
We got a Crowder that was coming out of a bad situation, wasn't used to working very hard, and didn't know the offense or defense really, and yet he contributed fairly well (better than he did in Cleveland, worse than he did in Boston). I expect with a summer to get in better shape and work on his shot, and more time learning the system we will see accelerated improvement. I think once he gets what we are trying to do we will see less of the maverick moves he made last season and stuff more in the flow of the offense, and his D, which was pretty solid, will only get better as he understands how our defense runs better.

Excuses.......Crowder can't jump for a supposed PF. He can't slam dunk and gets blocked doing layups as we have seen .A summer of working out isn't going to get him jumping higher, thats why he shoots so many other terrible shots.
Another season of learning *the Utah system* is not going to make him a better player .He played with Lebron and played awful even though Lebron attracts all the attn.,even then he shot terrible.
Crowder is a bench player and not a starter .He's ok for rotational minutes but shouldn't ever be a main cog.If he's a Jazz starter then I'd be concerned the Jazz are happy just to make the playoffs but don't expect to go far ,but the $price$ is right.
 
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