Too Many Question Marks

[LoPo]

Yes, when you run more of the offense through a player, that player is going to have better stats.

And yes, when your team brings in better players so they can win basketball games, the guy who put up stats on a bad team are going to be reduced to smaller roles where they put up worse stats.

Kuzma in no way took a step back. His defense has improved and he's become better at doing the little things. Yes the stats look worse, but that's because every single game he plays in now is a meaningful basketball game, not the stat stuff who cares fest that becomes the NBA when your team has no chance at making the playoffs.

It's not all about stats Cy. The Laker players, the coaches and even Kuzma said he needed to step up his game for the playoffs. He struggled this year in many ways because it wasn't just some free flowing offense. Everybody in the organization has said he has to emerge as the 3rd option for them to win it all, and I don't think he has quite gotten there.

Many people considered him a franchise cornerstone 18 months ago. The Lakers refused to trade him yet let Ingram go. They made the wrong call clearly. Winning basketball exposes the good and bad. When the team is terrible, you don't always know what you have really.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I dont see it.

Jazz have a lot of certainties.

DL's job is pretty freaking easy this year, at least as decision making. He has to make some improvements on the margins and assess where guys like Morgan/Brantley/Oni are. Bradley should be an easy dump/look to upgrade, but everything else is pretty much gravy. Obviously the challenges that come with GM'ing in Utah will always exist in the free agent field.

Make the draft pick and make it right (obviously hard).
Sign Clarkson to a fair deal (also hard, because convincing people to stay in Utah for fair market value is always difficult)
Sign one or two defensive specialist.

1st year late 2nd rounder players usually don't see the court. They got plenty of development time in the G-League. I think holding that against Quin is kind of ridiculous.

And DL has said as much interviews. They are going to target athletic guys who are committed to defense this off-season to round out the roster.

How are DL and Quin supposed to know if Morgan/Brantley/Oni are worth keeping if they didn't get any playing time? G-League is fine but limited. Understanding if they are good enough to be relied on is important because... once we sign JC we are going to be at the tax level (based on the basic projections). So we have to do some gymnastics to unload TB and Ed (doable but it will costs seconds and cash). So then you bring in two defensive specialists with the limited cap exceptions... those will then almost surely play over the unproven guys that you keep around. The cycle continues.

Having one of our project guys show enough promise to fill a small roster hole really helps us figure out the budget for the current year. We won't go into the tax, which means we are letting JC walk or not using our exceptions. Even if we find a way to dump TB and Ed, which will require some cash, is DL going to find something so good with his exceptions that he can ask the millers to invest more in the team?

I wouldn't hold it against Quin for not playing the G League guys if hadn't allocated 4 roster spots and both of our two-way deals to them. If Niang and TB were setting the world on fire I get why you don't experiment a little, but they were clearly lacking and weren't going to be playable together in the playoffs. We had some interesting options but instead of just for instance, rolling with Oni as a backup wing in the bubble... we insisted on giving Mudiay time to do something he can't. If the guys fail you can move on from them. Quin is painfully slow to change his rotations with some guys and others can produce and it doesn't seem to matter.

Just seems like there is a disconnect there if we are dedicating 4 roster spots to guys we won't consider playing, 2 two-way deals to guys we won't play, and 2 roster spots to Mudiay and TB who we know are still not super trustworthy... I didn't mention Niang because I think he's an established commodity and just a backend of the roster type. Playable in spots but should not be in your 8-9 man rotation.

 

[Jazz4ever]

No, I based it all off of assumptions others made about players. Many guys, especially on that Lakers team for example, were considered bad players or not worthy of winning basketball. When they were removed from the Laker circus, they actually all thrived in their own way. If anything, Kuzma took a step back when winning basketball came to LA.

A team could have gotten Brandon Ingram rather cheaply two years ago. Now, he's probably one of the hardest young guys to trade for in the entire league.

There was someone here advocating trading for Ingram before he broke out. Can't remember who.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Part of this lament is that we likely won't go after my guy Shaq because we already have too many unknowns. We will look to more established guys who will cost more and potentially be worse. He's my "Alex Caruso Memorial Free Agent I Really Like That We Won't Likely Even Consider" Award winner.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

How are DL and Quin supposed to know if Morgan/Brantley/Oni are worth keeping if they didn't get any playing time? G-League is fine but limited. Understanding if they are good enough to be relied on is important because... once we sign JC we are going to be at the tax level (based on the basic projections). So we have to do some gymnastics to unload TB and Ed (doable but it will costs seconds and cash). So then you bring in two defensive specialists with the limited cap exceptions... those will then almost surely play over the unproven guys that you keep around. The cycle continues.

Having one of our project guys show enough promise to fill a small roster hole really helps us figure out the budget for the current year. We won't go into the tax, which means we are letting JC walk or not using our exceptions. Even if we find a way to dump TB and Ed, which will require some cash, is DL going to find something so good with his exceptions that he can ask the millers to invest more in the team?

I wouldn't hold it against Quin for not playing the G League guys if hadn't allocated 4 roster spots and both of our two-way deals to them. If Niang and TB were setting the world on fire I get why you don't experiment a little, but they were clearly lacking and weren't going to be playable together in the playoffs. We had some interesting options but instead of just for instance, rolling with Oni as a backup wing in the bubble... we insisted on giving Mudiay time to do something he can't. If the guys fail you can move on from them. Quin is painfully slow to change his rotations with some guys and others can produce and it doesn't seem to matter.

Just seems like there is a disconnect there if we are dedicating 4 roster spots to guys we won't consider playing, 2 two-way deals to guys we won't play, and 2 roster spots to Mudiay and TB who we know are still not super trustworthy... I didn't mention Niang because I think he's an established commodity and just a backend of the roster type. Playable in spots but should not be in your 8-9 man rotation.

Practice bud. I'm sure they have a pretty good idea of where those dudes are at and what they want to see from them in the off-season.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

And please stop with this Quin is slow to change rotations. It's such a garbage BS narrative.

 

[Hekate]

Our G-League is more of a development program than 'hey, these guys aren't getting any minutes, let's stash them somewhere'. We will see more and more players come and go through there and some will probably make the team after a year or 2 but I don't think we are misevaluating guys like Brantley and Oni.

Both are nowhere near good defensively as Dort. Brantley has size defensively but does not know a single thing about team play. Oni plays smart and is good defensively but his shot doesn't go in that much and would be a huge trade-off as it would allow Denver to leave him open like they did with Morgan. We don't have many 2 way players and anything that would maximize Mitchell's offense was the right decision.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Practice bud. I'm sure they have a pretty good idea of where those dudes are at and what they want to see from them in the off-season.

We talkin about practice?

 

[l Abach l]

And please stop with this Quin is slow to change rotations. It's such a garbage BS narrative.

Quin doesn't get enough flack on here. Dude lost a 3-1 lead in the playoffs. The reality is that he failed to adjust to Murray and Malone's sets while Malone figured out the Jazz.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

And please stop with this Quin is slow to change rotations. It's such a garbage BS narrative.

Call it what you like... but for being a "mad scientist" he doesn't experiment much. Could run a different defensive scheme and go smaller and use a Morgan or Brantley instead of Niang or Bradley... could maybe simplify his system to better suit players... he kinda did that with JC but it was more of just letting JC roll which worked.

There are some guys he sticks with and some that get a quick hook. I watched TB give up 245 And 1s this year and he didn't try something different. Watch Niang get targeted and scored on and no change... then Morgan gives up and off the dribble 3 to Jamal Murray and he gets yanked.

He gets some blame here.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Quin doesn't get enough flack on here. Dude lost a 3-1 lead in the playoffs. The reality is that he failed to adjust to Murray and Malone's sets while Malone figured out the Jazz.

Jazz held Murray below 20 for 3 games, including a 7/21 for 17 points performance in Game 7,

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Our G-League is more of a development program than 'hey, these guys aren't getting any minutes, let's stash them somewhere'. We will see more and more players come and go through there and some will probably make the team after a year or 2 but I don't think we are misevaluating guys like Brantley and Oni.

Both are nowhere near good defensively as Dort. Brantley has size defensively but does not know a single thing about team play. Oni plays smart and is good defensively but his shot doesn't go in that much and would be a huge trade-off as it would allow Denver to leave him open like they did with Morgan. We don't have many 2 way players and anything that would maximize Mitchell's offense was the right decision.

That's fine and in that case you blame DL for dedicating 1/3 of the roster to the development program when the actual program needed some help.

We didn't need a Dort level of success... Brantley, Morgan, or maybe Oni give us something different that helps the defense have a chance with Rudy out. We don't know because we never tried it. I just think a coach with great vision would be able to say that Niang and TB are likely to get completely BBQ'd in the playoffs... maybe we try one of these other guys that might not be it, but there is a chance. Maybe you try some zone to compensate for the fact that some teams will cook drop big schemes or because you have some defensive liabilities that might be better suited to that type of coverage.

Just think he needs to get in his bag a bit... Be more of a Nick Nurse and less of a Coach Bud.