Derrick Favors: I'm playing on one leg

[MTJazzv3]

Bone contusion again, or the same one? I'm done trying to figure out how this all makes sense. The whole situation sucks.

Read on Twitter

That is one hella bone bruise! I'm no doctor but extended chronic knee pain is extended chronic knee pain - which means your knees aren't that solid. Sadly I think this is going to be part of Favors career though plenty of guys in the league have gone through other knee issues when they should have been heading towards prime numbers but over several years re-emerged. Bummer for Favors but this situation makes him cheaper to keep around and I suspect the Jazz see him in their near future - healthy.

[AingesBurner]

Bone contusion again, or the same one? I'm done trying to figure out how this all makes sense. The whole situation sucks.

Read on Twitter

I think it's same one.

Edit it is the same knee.

[KqWIN]

There's only a month left in the season. We need to start building towards the playoffs without Favors in mind. Johnson is going to have to play ~32 minutes at the 4 come playoff time. Hayward and Ingles need to be ready to play some 4 as well. I don't feel too poorly about any of those guys matching up against Blake, but they're going to have to get used to boxing out and securing the rebounds.

[MTJazzv3]

There's only a month left in the season. We need to start building towards the playoffs without Favors in mind. Johnson is going to have to play ~32 minutes at the 4 come playoff time. Hayward and Ingles need to be ready to play some 4 as well. I don't feel too poorly about any of those guys matching up against Blake, but they're going to have to get used to boxing out and securing the rebounds.

Really good point. And I think JJ is up for it. The Jazz have been the perfect landing zone for him. He gets a really long deserved leash when he is in yet Quin has been saving him for the playoffs, aging him like a fine wine. That is a cool thing about this Jazz team - "old" guys like Boris and JJ being important to the team in a lot of ways, (many off-court), plus the "home grown" of Hay, Rudy and Hood and a cast of young and cheap athletes, (I see you Dante, Alec, Lyles and Neto). Jazz are kind of fat right now and heading to the playoffs with a good seed.

[Inigo Montoya]

Just sit the poor guy and let him heal.

[Mutangclan]

This Favors situation is probably the worst handled injury I have ever seen from top to bottom for an organization. I put most of it squarely on Quin though because any fool with eyes could see that Favors hasn't looked even close to right all year and he should have been shut down from the get go until he did look right regardless of what the medical staff said. Instead we screwed around with him and he has not only been a non factor all year but he is still hurt. Just pure incompetence from top to bottom.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using RealGM mobile app

I know fans always like to have someone to blame, but its funny to see this. The only one that can be blamed here, is Favors body. Acting like this situation, where an athletic 6'10 player has knees that can't support his athleticism, is the first time it's ever been seen, is silly.
Favors has "bad" knees.....or at a minimum, average guy knees that are not built to handle the elite athleticism that professional basketball players need/use. Fav is huge, massive man. And we've seen countless times in the league that this happens to bigs.

If you think for a second, for ONE second that the staff and Quin haven't done everything in their power to handle this properly, you're out of your mind. Professional sports, with millions invested in players, has best in the world type medical staff.
The medical staff has watched him, determined that when he plays he's not in danger of further hurting himself, and so he was available. Quin then asked him if he was ready to go, and I have no doubt Fav always wants to play. End of story.

Look no further than the entirety of Favors career forward: He is what he is, this is what it is. No matter how much rest, how much pt, he is not going to be able to keep up with an 82 game schedule.
Sadly, probably the only solution where we could still be able to have Fav on the court, will be as a backup Center, playing MAYBE 20 minutes a game. And minimal amount of practice.

Dont get your hopes up Jazz fans, that all we need is Favors to get that restful offseason and then he'll be good. Talking about letting him heal....remember what happened beginning of the year? The pre-season? Fav was already hurting. This is what it is....and we know what it is.

Only silver lining here, is what MT mentioned. Now we'll be able to keep Fav on a decent contract. Too bad he's not going to be our 30min a night PF, with 15/10 per. Sad and extremely disappointing development.

[Mutangclan]

There's only a month left in the season. We need to start building towards the playoffs without Favors in mind. Johnson is going to have to play ~32 minutes at the 4 come playoff time. Hayward and Ingles need to be ready to play some 4 as well. I don't feel too poorly about any of those guys matching up against Blake, but they're going to have to get used to boxing out and securing the rebounds.

Yea but JJ can't play 32 minutes a night regularly. And we have over a month to go till playoffs and some big games coming up.....Quin and staff are going to have some serious massaging of minutes that they'll need to do. BUT, they also have to get some continuity going with the guys.
I can't imagine how stressed the coaches are getting.

I mentioned it last week, but I really think Fav needs to be coming off the bench, and we need to start playing Bolomboy. We saw a glimpse of him the other night against the Thunder, and this team needs his size/athleticism/ENERGY/rebounding/blk shots. He needs to find a rythmn in his role with these guys at the Junkyard Dog. When Fav is available, have him play backup C.
With Diaw, he knows his job, and doesn't need the on-court minutes like Bolomboy does; Diaw is ready at all times.

I think Quin needs to look at our team of starters now, and then see our bench mob unit as Alec/Dante/Fav and then JJ or Ingles.

[erudite23]

I really get tired of the rush to blame someone in the organization when things go badly. Players get injured and things like this happen. Its always hard to make decisions on injuries and where to draw the line between rest and play.

It sucks, but I think Mutangclan is right: this just might be what we are getting from Derrick moving forward. He hasn't had a fully healthy season in 2 or 3 years and this has the look/feel of an issue that isn't going away any time soon. At least we didn't give him that mammoth extension before the season.

[zero24gravity]

There's only a month left in the season. We need to start building towards the playoffs without Favors in mind. Johnson is going to have to play ~32 minutes at the 4 come playoff time. Hayward and Ingles need to be ready to play some 4 as well. I don't feel too poorly about any of those guys matching up against Blake, but they're going to have to get used to boxing out and securing the rebounds.

.... and Rudy will need to play near 40mpg in the playoffs just to keep teams honest. Ugh, not a good situation.

[MTJazzv3]

There's only a month left in the season. We need to start building towards the playoffs without Favors in mind. Johnson is going to have to play ~32 minutes at the 4 come playoff time. Hayward and Ingles need to be ready to play some 4 as well. I don't feel too poorly about any of those guys matching up against Blake, but they're going to have to get used to boxing out and securing the rebounds.

.... and Rudy will need to play near 40mpg in the playoffs just to keep teams honest. Ugh, not a good situation.

I think it is likely that with the rest Favs is getting he'll be good for a minimum of 10-15 mpg. The problem is though Favs doesn't have much of an impact offensively on limited minutes but he could sure come in and body up Griffen effectively on short minutes but I wouldn't be looking for a lot of blocks - his explosiveness isn't going to show up this season.

[MTJazzv3]

Updated. D. Faves is not playing on 1 leg as he is rehabbing. Missed 7 in a row and 24 games out of 71 games so far. No word, per usual, from the Jazz FO, which means **** is not good. (They responded to some blow-back earlier in the season about being so secretive on projected returns for this very reason and actually would project something like "maybe a week out)" But Favs' bone contusion, knees, backs - who the heck knows, but no news is bad news?

[Lava Rock Kid]

I think the secretive jazz about injury status comes from the Boozer days, we were always told it would be another week and six weeks later he is still in street clothes. After the fans reaction to this, the jazz are very tight lipped about the injury heal process date Guess, which is a guess because everyones body heals differently.

Is Favors the new Boozer?

Maybe the jazz should sign Boozer for the playoff run, one of the two should be healthy.

[Inigo Montoya]

Say what you want about Boozer but he can hit that midrange shot.

[sipclip]

It is time to force feed Lyle's minutes as a starter for a week or so to see if he can snap out of this shooting slump and get to where he was at the end of last year. We can't afford to play Johnson these heavy minutes right now when we need him rested going into the playoffs. If not force feed Lyle's minutes then let's give Bolomboy a shot to show what he can do. At least with him you know that you will get solid rebounding which is something we don't see from Johnson, Diaw or Lyle's.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using RealGM mobile app

[KqWIN]

It is time to force feed Lyle's minutes as a starter for a week or so to see if he can snap out of this shooting slump and get to where he was at the end of last year. We can't afford to play Johnson these heavy minutes right now when we need him rested going into the playoffs. If not force feed Lyle's minutes then let's give Bolomboy a shot to show what he can do. At least with him you know that you will get solid rebounding which is something we don't see from Johnson, Diaw or Lyle's.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using RealGM mobile app

I agree we should be resting Joe, but force feeding Lyles minutes is almost guaranteeing a loss. He is horrific. Bolomboy can maybe get some minutes instead of Withey, but as a 4 that's an auto loss as well. He's strictly a 5 in the NBA. It's too bad there wasn't a good combo forward that we could use off the bench...oh wait, there was! The real tragedy is that our FO does not like free talent.

[zero24gravity]

It is time to force feed Lyle's minutes as a starter for a week or so to see if he can snap out of this shooting slump and get to where he was at the end of last year. We can't afford to play Johnson these heavy minutes right now when we need him rested going into the playoffs. If not force feed Lyle's minutes then let's give Bolomboy a shot to show what he can do. At least with him you know that you will get solid rebounding which is something we don't see from Johnson, Diaw or Lyle's.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using RealGM mobile app

I agree we should be resting Joe, but force feeding Lyles minutes is almost guaranteeing a loss. He is horrific. Bolomboy can maybe get some minutes instead of Withey, but as a 4 that's an auto loss as well. He's strictly a 5 in the NBA. It's too bad there wasn't a good combo forward that we could use off the bench...oh wait, there was! The real tragedy is that our FO does not like free talent.

I just want to be sure I'm clear. You're saying that Bolomboy is strictly a 5? If that's the case, I disagree completely. He's only 6'9" 235 lbs. He also has shot over 45% of 3's in the D-League (1.9 attempts per game). He's a beastly athlete who can rebound at any level, and has the quickness to keep up with stretch-4's. He's definitely still learning the game, but in spurts can't be any less effective or shoot any worse then Lyles & Withey have.

[sipclip]

It is time to force feed Lyle's minutes as a starter for a week or so to see if he can snap out of this shooting slump and get to where he was at the end of last year. We can't afford to play Johnson these heavy minutes right now when we need him rested going into the playoffs. If not force feed Lyle's minutes then let's give Bolomboy a shot to show what he can do. At least with him you know that you will get solid rebounding which is something we don't see from Johnson, Diaw or Lyle's.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using RealGM mobile app

I agree we should be resting Joe, but force feeding Lyles minutes is almost guaranteeing a loss. He is horrific. Bolomboy can maybe get some minutes instead of Withey, but as a 4 that's an auto loss as well. He's strictly a 5 in the NBA. It's too bad there wasn't a good combo forward that we could use off the bench...oh wait, there was! The real tragedy is that our FO does not like free talent.

I completely disagree with you. Force feeding Lyles doesn't even come close to guaranteeing a loss and I think he will snap out of his funk pretty quickly with some consistent minutes. Even if Lyles is playing bad to act like it would automatically be a loss is just stupid. We have won a bunch of games this year where we have gotten almost no production from a certain position.

I have no clue why you believe that Bolomboy is strictly a 5. Bolomboy is clearly a pf.

Who is this combo forward that we could have had for cheap?

[KqWIN]

I just want to be sure I'm clear. You're saying that Bolomboy is strictly a 5? If that's the case, I disagree completely. He's only 6'9" 235 lbs. He also has shot over 45% of 3's in the D-League (1.9 attempts per game). He's a beastly athlete who can rebound at any level, and has the quickness to keep up with stretch-4's. He's definitely still learning the game, but in spurts can't be any less effective or shoot any worse then Lyles & Withey have.

That is what I'm saying. I think his only value in this league is as a roll man and energy guy, so his only chance of making it is to become a threat in PnR. If you put him with another non-shooting 5 he doesn't have any value other than crashing the glass. Maybe he can hang defensively as a 4, but he needs to more than just get by if he's going to be able to play 4 at the NBA level. From my understanding he is still new to the game and has poor awareness, so I can't imagine he'd be a good defender at the 4. He may not be good enough at any position for that matter. It's not unusual for a player drafted in the 50's to never make it. It's unusual if they do.

[zero24gravity]

Who is this combo forward that we could have had for cheap?

Pretty sure that was in reference to Casspi.

[KqWIN]

I completely disagree with you. Force feeding Lyles doesn't even come close to guaranteeing a loss and I think he will snap out of his funk pretty quickly with some consistent minutes. Even if Lyles is playing bad to act like it would automatically be a loss is just stupid. We have won a bunch of games this year where we have gotten almost no production from a certain position.

I have no clue why you believe that Bolomboy is strictly a 5. Bolomboy is clearly a pf.

Who is this combo forward that we could have had for cheap?

The combo forward is Omri Casspi.

Guarantee is an exaggeration, but let's be honest about what Lyles is right now. He is one of the worst players in the NBA, and if you give him starter minutes he would be the worst player getting those minutes on any team that is trying to win. This isn't a funk, this is an entire season. If you want to go further you can go with an entire career. It's ridiculous to point out the best time a player has had in career and expect him to become that player suddenly. I say this a lot, but some players aren't as bad or good as they seem. You have to look at the big picture, and when you look at everything Lyles has done this season and last, the product is not very good. It is the Trey Burke dilemma where you have a scoring player that isn't actually good at scoring and is big liability in other areas.

Now is the time for your team to start fine tuning their game. It is not the time to hope that a terrible player becomes less terrible. These last games matter, and if you're trying to win those games Lyles should not see the floor. He's not good enough. The saving grace for Lyles is that a very low bar has been set. Our PF situation is amongst the worst in the league with Favors out, but it also says something about Lyles that he is at the end of that rotation.