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Anyone want to make any bold predictions as to who will be better this year?

Should be a good year for comparison as far as I can tell.

Make your predictions if you like. Feel free to put whatever constraints you like. (adjusting for pace, and minutes, using advanced stats, whatever you like)

I think this should be a fun little rivalry between our two teams.

Funny thing, I used the exact same text to do a Kanter vs. Jonas thread on the Raptors forum.

we love Hayward here in Indy having watched him at Butler and at Brownsburg where he won a state title playing with Mavunga who is on our summer team. but I wouldn't trade Paul George for two Gordon Haywards.

This is similar to the Alford v/s. Reggie Miller debate., in which case I gotta go with the LA born player again.

Although Hayward, unlike Alford, will be a fringe all-star caliber NBA player. I think he will establish himself this year.

Awwwwwwww that's precious.

No dis to Hayward but the Pacers lucked out that Utah took Hayward before they could get him. George turned out to be the better player with more potential. I think Hayward is a very good player with all-star potential; and I was one of the Pacer fans on the night of that draft hoping for Hayward. But Paul George is a superstar two-way player with rare talent. Franchise Guys like him aren't easy to find especially outside of the top 5 picks.

jazzfan1971 wrote:Anyone want to make any bold predictions as to who will be better this year?

Should be a good year for comparison as far as I can tell.

Make your predictions if you like. Feel free to put whatever constraints you like. (adjusting for pace, and minutes, using advanced stats, whatever you like)

I think this should be a fun little rivalry between our two teams.

Rivalry, eh? The Jazz just lost their two best players and have no veteran players at all now. The Pacers are coming off a conference finals and bringing back their whole group. It's hard to call this rivalry. Pacers have 3 guys definitively better than anyone Utah has (Hibbert, West, and George are each better than any single Jazz player. Not talking trade value or whatnot, just straight up basketball value. Hill and Stephenson are arguable.)

We have a former top-10 scorer all-star who's had a long time to rehab and can come back nice and easy on a deceptively deep team.

Paul George is already an All-Star and pretty much a top 20 player in the league. Gordon Hayward. Not so much.

The Jazz will be awful this year. Jefferson and Millsap were the anchors of that team and they're gone. I like Kanter. I like Favors. But this is going to be a transitional period, where guys find themselves playing bigger minutes, longer games, bigger responsibilities. Growing pains. You've got basically zero chance of making the playoffs this year. So go all-out bad. Come on, you've got Kanter and Favors thrust into the starting roles. Let them fail so they can get better. Burke is a complete rookie point guard running the team. biedrens and jefferson off the bench. Holy ****, it's tank city.

They'll pick high high high with their own pick, they have golden state's, they might find another by taking on some other crappy salary.

They'll draft a couple guys and basically be done with the post-deron fugue period and fully into the wiggins or parker or randle or whoever period. Very strong rebuild - stayed competitive last year and then do a single-year tank into the strongest draft since 2008.

Truth be told, though, I really do like Hayward. If the Pacers had picked him that day, I would have been pretty happy. He's better than 4 guys picked ahead of him - turner, wesley johnson, ekpe udoh, aminu - and he was a great pick for Utah.

Boneman2 wrote:This is similar to the Alford v/s. Reggie Miller debate., in which case I gotta go with the LA born player again.

Although Hayward, unlike Alford, will be a fringe all-star caliber NBA player. I think he will establish himself this year.

It's almost eerie how similar it is. Alford and Hayward were both Indiana guys who everyone almost assumed were going to the Pacers. Alford won a championship at IU, nailing 7 threes in the championship game. Hayward had the greatest missed buzzer beater maybe in NCAA history. I believe if he'd hit that he would have just floated up off the court. Both times it just seemed so right for the Pacers to land their guy! They were both kinda slotted to go in that range! But with the 11th pick they took Reggie Miller (people in Indiana were freaking out, man, freaking out), and with the 10th pick they took Paul George (people everywhere were saying "who?").

I mean these probably go down as the two most important draft picks in Pacers history in the 1980-2020 period. Holy crap.

And both times they took an LA guy instead of the local dude.

I really like Hayward, he has great potential and I genuinely am looking forward to a Hayward vs George All star match up, only problem I see is that both are playing for a small/medium franchise so they have to work twice as hard to make it to all star.

Having said all that, George can also compete in the dunk contest!

(genuinely, my basketball loving friends here in the UK have heard of George, not of Hayward)

I like Hayward... but he's nowhere near as good as Paul George. The Jazz set themselves years back by letting Al Jeff and Millsap walk for nothing.

I had to look at the date on this. This would have been good debate a year ago.

However since then Paul has become an All NBA and All NBA Defense team member. He also went toe to toe with Lebron in the playoffs and while he clearly didn't win his matchup with the best player in the world, he did as well as almost anyone would outside Durant and a couple others. Even Lebron acknowledged him during a game.

A year ago this made sense. Today, Gordon has a ton of catching up to do.

I making a forward looking argument. You are talking about the past. I'm asking who will have a better 2013/2014 regular season.

George obviously is winning the battle up til now. But, with Utah going on a youth movement and Granger's return and what looked to me like Stephenson really stepping up, we might see a year where Hayward's stats surpass George.

Not saying it's terribly likely, but, their stats per/36 weren't that far off last season. So I don't think it's a ridiculous question, even if George would be the smart bet right now.

Hayward's defense is underappreciated. That being said, it's not at George's level. Their offenses I can see being close, so it's not out of the question that Gordon ends up with better stats.

I would say that Hayward and George as players aren't in the same tier, but neighboring ones perhaps. I might be inclined to keep a closer eye on Utah's youth thanks to this thread.

Utah is ridiculously young.

Burke
Burks
Hayward
Favors
Kanter

Granger would fit well on your roster.

jazzfan1971 wrote:I making a forward looking argument. You are talking about the past. I'm asking who will have a better 2013/2014 regular season.

George obviously is winning the battle up til now. But, with Utah going on a youth movement and Granger's return and what looked to me like Stephenson really stepping up, we might see a year where Hayward's stats surpass George.

Not saying it's terribly likely, but, their stats per/36 weren't that far off last season. So I don't think it's a ridiculous question, even if George would be the smart bet right now.

The best gauge of future behavior is the past. This past year tells us Paul George is clearly a better player. Hayward would have to take a no brainer most improved player award type of jump to get near Paul. Paul has put himself in the 2nd tier of stars this year. That's a huge gap. Expecting Paul to take a step backwards is odd. We don't even know if Granger can play again, or anywhere near his previous level. Even if he can, he's never been as good in his career as Paul was last year. There's no reason to take the ball out of Paul's hands. If anything you let Granger spot up and let Paul kick to him. As for Stephenson stepping up, the guy averaged 8 ppg in the season and 9 ppg in the post season. He's erratic and prone to screwing everything up for 5 minute stretches after looking like a star for a couple minutes. You can't take the ball from Paul to hope you're getting 'good' Stephenson very often.

That said, I don't think Paul will average anywhere near 11 PPG on 36% shooting for the first 15-20 games like he did last year. That alone will push his numbers a bit.

Gordon was playing 30 MPG last year, with a usage % of 22.1. That's already pretty high. The top 50 in usage is at 23%. Any significant jump in usage and Gordon would be there with Deron Williams, Tim Duncan, Steph Curry, or LeMarcus Aldridge. Is he really that type of player? So Gordon was already getting a good number of minutes and a lot of possessions for himself. I'm not sure his jump is going to be as dramatic as people think. Unless Utah coaches think he's a superstar and give him superstar freedom.

So yes, I was looking at the past, but mainly because it's generally a good indicator of the future.

I'm just saying the stats per minute weren't that far off last year. And it's possible that Hayward sees a 20% increase in PT this year.

There are no guarantees obviously.

And if Granger comes in and gets 30mpg those minutes have to come from somewhere. You are probably right to assume they won't come from George though. George will probably get his.

jazzfan1971 wrote:I'm just saying the stats per minute weren't that far off last year. And it's possible that Hayward sees a 20% increase in PT this year.

There are no guarantees obviously.

And if Granger comes in and gets 30mpg those minutes have to come from somewhere. You are probably right to assume they won't come from George though. George will probably get his.

They're coming at the expense of Gerald Green, Sam Young, and Orlando Johnson. Maybe a few from Lance, too.

Under just about any circumstances I expect Paul George's minutes to be down. They asked too much from him last year and he wore down at the end of the season I thought. Between Granger and Solomon Hill I'll be surprised if Paul has to play as much. Also if Granger actually starts and spends most of his minutes on he floor with George there will be fewer shots for him as well. Another potential factor factor reducing usage will be Roy being involved in he offense more. They didn't use Roy much for long stretches last year when he was struggling. That will likely change next year too.

Al of this is good for the team but could cause some fall off in total production for George. All that said, I would hope his efficiency improves as a result.

Well in full disclosure I'm a big non believer of the per 36. There were a couple years in the mid 90's where Chris Gatling had a per 36 in the neighborhood of Michael Jordan. Generally there's a reason in the minute difference between players. Sometimes that reason is just a dumb coach, I'm not oblivious to that. I generally watch 10-15 games of every team every year and I'll say I never understood the minute distribution since Sloan left.

Anyway I've strayed from the point, but the per 36 is a stat that levels the playing field between guys it shouldn't sometimes.

I just think (as I would as a Pacers fan) that PG24 will make his next jump offensively into the next tier of players. If so, Hayward will need to blow up in a way rarely seen for it to be close. I do like Gordon and think he should be a above average to very good starter for a long time. In Paul I just see a guy who can put himself very near the category of guys like Lebron and Durant.

I see Pacers having six guys get near 1000 points for the season. Paul is not going to have to put up Lebron or Durant numbers for the Pacers to win most nights. I can certainly make a case for picking Hayward before George in a fantasy league but yawn.