Game 28: Utah Jazz @ Oklahoma City Thunder

[Jazzfan Bayamon]

Well, the Bulls started by being terrible and losing games while Deng and Noah developed and until they got a star in the draft.

The Thunder managed around 42 wins in Durant's first two years.

The Blazers lost in their first two years as they let Aldridge develop.

The 76ers were terrible until Thad Young and JRue Holiday developed.

The Pacers let their young players play a ton in the last two years, they lost a ton of games and now their young players have improved.

The Heat were the worst team in the NBA three years ago though that doesn't have as much to do with player development.

The Magic missed the playoffs while they gave Dwight huge minutes, seemed to payoff later on.

The Mavericks lost a lot in Dirk's first two years as they gave him tons of minutes.


And that's just playoff teams from last year alone.

LOL!!!

You mentioned ONE player from each team, and it happenes that that ONE player you mentioned for the most part are all time level talents that were just BETTER than the other teammates even as rookies. Also, many of those teams were already DEAD LAST in the league the year before hence getting a top pick. So being a bad team wasn't a result of them playing rookies over "vets", they just didn't have any talent worthwhile and played their best players. And, finally, most of those teams got better when they added a VET!!! through trade or FA.

You see, the whole "turn it over to the young guns" is a mistaken and flawed approach. I however, agree that Burks and Favors should get more minutes (I think Favors should start over Millsap right now), but not because they are young and I want them to "develop", but because they are better players and fit in what we are trying to do better than others that are playing more minutes than them. It's as simple as that. Kanter's minutes should remain right where they are (He is really raw), and Hayward is a starter hence already getting his minutes.

[Jazzfan Bayamon]

And LOL at you mentioning Deng and Noah together (they were drafted YEARS apart). Deng's "young" core was with Ben Gordon, Hinrich and Jay Williams. They were a REAL bad team before these guys, so again, playing them was because they were flat out better than anyone else in that team. Then they got to the playoffs one year and even got to the 2nd round. Next year they got all hurt and sucked again. They then drafted Derrick Rose (MVP level talent), Noah and signed vets such as CARLOS BOOZER, KYLE KORVER AND RONNIE BREWER (where have I heard those before) for them to get where they are. I don't see a "lets just play the young guys and suck as a team" there.

And in Portland, Aldridge didn't start as a rookie, and by his 2nd year, he was better than the other guys, but wasn't the focus of the team as they had Roy as their leader. And the biggest reason they "sucked" was because they kept getting hurt over and over again, not because they decided to play the young guys and screw it.

Again, nice try...

[galatasaray]

you must only see what nene or lamarcus aldrige do with jefferson, thats the simple answer, the jazz rhythm to score with jefferson is the wrong way

a center must have a insidepresence first, he is a scorer no doubt, but for a team he is a handicap with his size

put kanter and favors in and find other way to score, not just al jefferson, kanter can score 10 and favors 15 when they become their minutes and their energy defensively are much higher, at the end you can win games a lot of easier

[countrybama24]

Oh and BTW, turning the team over to kids and letting them screw up over and over isn't going to help us long term either. It will probably disrupt the locker room as some guys will want to actually win. It could also lead to some of those kids start feeling entitled and start acting up, since the team already loses with them all the time, what will it matter if they pout and moan? Oh yeah, we get lottery picks, not like we already have 4 of them (and might have one this year regardless with the GS pick). Maybe then next year we can bitch about what lottery pick is playing and which not, and who to run out of town so the other can play. All the while the team keeps getting worse. Yay!!!

First of all, the locker room issues you're talking about are why we should trade the vets, not bench them. No one is advocating making raja, devin and jefferson then 8th man or anything. If anything, not getting any minutes is discouraging for the rookies and lessens their incentive to put in work.

Second, the entitlement factor is easily solved by keeping a couple of good vets around (just not the expensive chuckers), occasionally benching them for poor play, and humility by learning from their mistakes. If they dont make any mistakes, then great, they're awesome players anyways. We'll have to start them sometime, and they've already learned about the pecking order via a half year of 10 minutes a game (or two years in favors case). This is also highly speculative, you have no evidence to back this assertion up besides your own opinion. I think we drafted pretty high character guys.

Third, you say we already have lottery picks, well the problem is their not high enough. We keep drafting in 12-16 and no $hit we won't get a star. The argument for trading the vets and letting the young guys make mistakes is to get a pick with real value (top 6 in this draft is really great after a drop off).

You wanted evidence of this lose now strategy. The grizzlies are significantly better after trading Pau for prospects and drafted a few more young guys. The twolves are slowly improving through the draft (and our front office isn't nearly as incompetent), the thunder obviously, the blazers were awful as they accumulated several top 5 picks, the heat were awful before they drafted dwyane wade, the bulls obviously sucked before they drafted rose, etc etc (I think this team is analogous to that bulls team, with some decent players, but they got extremely lucky in the draft).

We aren't winning anything with this current team, jefferson and harris will only be here for another 2 yrs MAX (we're gonna have to pay the other young players eventually). What is the point of keeping them around if we're just gonna get dropped in the first round AT BEST, at worst miss the playoffs AND not improve over the long run with better draft picks. So keep playing the vets, maybe get the 8th seed (unlikely), maybe not. YAY!!! Mediocrity!

[babyjax13]

So it's Devin's fault?

And last year it was Deron's fault when Al put up similar numbers?

Look, I don't "hate" Al. But at this point I just want him to go use some other team's possessions.

Last year Al was playing hurt until after the all-star break, but no, it wasn't Deron's fault. Jefferson when we traded for him and the Al we have now are different players, this one actually passes the ball every once in a while. I'm not saying we're losing because of Harris, I am saying that Al would have a lower usage and more assists if we had some players that could shoot - that is all.

[Jazzfan Bayamon]

Oh and BTW, turning the team over to kids and letting them screw up over and over isn't going to help us long term either. It will probably disrupt the locker room as some guys will want to actually win. It could also lead to some of those kids start feeling entitled and start acting up, since the team already loses with them all the time, what will it matter if they pout and moan? Oh yeah, we get lottery picks, not like we already have 4 of them (and might have one this year regardless with the GS pick). Maybe then next year we can bitch about what lottery pick is playing and which not, and who to run out of town so the other can play. All the while the team keeps getting worse. Yay!!!

First of all, the locker room issues you're talking about are why we should trade the vets, not bench them. No one is advocating making raja, devin and jefferson then 8th man or anything. If anything, not getting any minutes is discouraging for the rookies and lessens their incentive to put in work.

Second, the entitlement factor is easily solved by keeping a couple of good vets around (just not the expensive chuckers), occasionally benching them for poor play, and humility by learning from their mistakes. If they dont make any mistakes, then great, they're awesome players anyways. We'll have to start them sometime, and they've already learned about the pecking order via a half year of 10 minutes a game (or two years in favors case). This is also highly speculative, you have no evidence to back this assertion up besides your own opinion. I think we drafted pretty high character guys.

Third, you say we already have lottery picks, well the problem is their not high enough. We keep drafting in 12-16 and no $hit we won't get a star. The argument for trading the vets and letting the young guys make mistakes is to get a pick with real value (top 6 in this draft is really great after a drop off).

You wanted evidence of this lose now strategy. The grizzlies are significantly better after trading Pau for prospects and drafted a few more young guys. The twolves are slowly improving through the draft (and our front office isn't nearly as incompetent), the thunder obviously, the blazers were awful as they accumulated several top 5 picks, the heat were awful before they drafted dwyane wade, the bulls obviously sucked before they drafted rose, etc etc (I think this team is analogous to that bulls team, with some decent players, but they got extremely lucky in the draft).

We aren't winning anything with this current team, jefferson and harris will only be here for another 2 yrs MAX (we're gonna have to pay the other young players eventually). What is the point of keeping them around if we're just gonna get dropped in the first round AT BEST, at worst miss the playoffs AND not improve over the long run with better draft picks. So keep playing the vets, maybe get the 8th seed (unlikely), maybe not. YAY!!! Mediocrity!

*Sigh*

You play to win the game!!

And LOL at you for mentioning Memphis. Of their core players (Gay, Gasol and Randolph), they only drafted Rudy Gay (they actually traded for him at draft day for Battier I think), and it wasn't a top pick. Their "great" top 2 pick was Hasheem Thabeet. Gasol they adquired through trade and was a 2nd rounder and Randolph was also a trade. What have they benefited with high draft picks? OJ Mayo? Really?

Right now you play Al Jefferson because he is the best player and the one that helps us win the most. You teach the young guys that in order for them to get his spot, they have to really step it up and take it from him. I've been saying Favors should start for Millsap and it's not because I hate Millsap like y'all hate Al, nor because "we need to develop the future", but because IMO that will help us win more right now. Again, "You play to win the game!!"

And then you mention Harris. Why?? Do we have a young lottery PG on the bench you want to play?? Oh wait, I think we do, his name is Devin Harris. By your account, Harris is the youngest PG on the team and a lottery pick, so we should, if anything, play him more minutes so he can develope and reach that lottery potential. FREE DEVIN HARRIS!!!

[countrybama24]

You play to win the game. You GM to win championships. Play Al if we got him, but i want to trade him (not bench him).

The example you take issue with is the grizzlies? Fine, but empirically the Jazz have done better than Hasheem Thabeet (a historically awful bust) with their top picks, so I dont see the relevance in that example. In fact, the grizz tried to improve through free agency (the opposite if my strategy). They're not winning a championship anytime soon, but they still prove my point that trading your best player while your'e mired in mediocrity to bring back a young asset can improve the team. Every other team winning championships either got extremely high draft picks by being bad for awhile, or is a big market. Period. There are exceptions to every rule, but that doesn't make your strategy anymore likely to actually make us a contender.

You've also conceded all my other examples, all of which are (or were, preinjuries) real contenders.

You're right, harris is irrelevant. But only because he can't get us any young assets with potential, I just want to see him gone. Obviously he has no potential, so your assertion that I would want to see him get more time is an obvious misinterpretation of my argument. You haven't proven this team can contend with your strategy, so you still are cheering for mediocrity.

[d-will8]

That's a lame argument man. Of course you play to win. Nobody's arguing that you don't. A lot of us just feel like cashing in all our chips to get whalloped in the first round or, more likely, narrowly miss the playoffs this year instead of working towards a future where we could win a lot more isn't a smart long term strategy. I'd rather have my team doing its best to give itself a chance of winning the game in the future than sacrificing that to win a few meaningless games now.

[d-will8]

To expand on that, we'd still be playing to win the game if we traded some of the vets and played the young guys more. We probably wouldn't be very good at it, but we'd still be trying to win now. More importantly, the young guys would be learning from their mistakes in meaningful minutes and learning what it takes to win in the future.

[Jazzfan Bayamon]

It's a culture man, a winning culture you build up by NOT ACCEPTING LOSING. What you want is exactly that, for the "benefit of the team". Well guess what, the Raptors, Wizards, Bobcats, Kings, Pistons have all been somewhat in the position you ask us to be in, and where are they?? None of the teams someone mentioned in an earlier post did it that way except OKC, and their succes comes from having an all time great talent in Kevin Durant, not for sucking to get high DPs, (they really only had 2 since KD: Westbrook and Harden). Also, you (like many others) aren't asking really to trade Al and Harris, y'all just want to dump them to get them out of the way, which is even more stupid. Why do I say this? Because to trade you need two, and you need for it to be a good trade. Right now, there really isn't a good trade that could be made for the Jazz by trading Al, so we don't trade him, same with Harris, but since you don't want him interfering with the holy grail of young players in Favors and Kanter (who should play all 48 minutes every game even if they foul out), y'all want him waived. Same with Harris. And it's all good because then we can all have a superbowl moment in june at draft day along with the afore mentioned Raptors, Wizards, Kings, etc.

I mean, do y'all even think some times?

I will try to say this again to see if some can actually grasp it.

Right now, Favors NEEDS to start over Millsap. Why? Because Millsap can't take the pounding of a full time starting PF and gets worn down to the point he becomes much worse than what Favors brings on both sides. Burks needs to play close to 20 mpg. Why? Because he can create offense, has a pretty good shot and is athletic, not bad on D and really impacts the game positively when he does play. Kanter should keep playing his current minutes. Why? Because he really isn't ready for more consistant minutes. He is tentative on offense, and often doesn't read the play causing the ball to stop and a forced shot by someone else. He is good and defense and rebouning and that's his role, which he is playing and playing well. When he develops his offensive game more, then we can talk about changing his role and getting him more minutes consistently. It should be either Bell, Howard or CJ. Whoever is playing better, but never play 2 of them at the same time (taking minutes from Hayward/Burks). Watson should never start. His role is off the bench and he excels at it. If you want to bench Harris, then start Tinsley, but keep Earl in his off the bench role.

And finally, we need to change our offensive game plan. We have to shift it towards more of a pick-n-roll oriented offense off the wings (laterals) with Harris and Hayward attacking (in the SL, Burks and CJ off the bench) and less of an ISO post game with Al, Millsap and Favors. This opens up the weak side for kickout or back doors. When he do a high pick-n-roll, since we don't have too much shooters, the defense can crowd the paint and we only have the strong side to move the ball to, when that's stopped, all movement is stopped and we have to "go at it again" or just dump the ball in the post with 5 secs left on the shot clock. And example of this was the Memphis game, and it really opened up our offense a lot.

So, where have I argued for anything that "hurts" our future, if anything, getting used to winning will help us a whole lot more than tanking. See San Antonio Spurs.

[d-will8]

The Spurs may not be a great example of the strategy we're talking about, but they're also not a great example of the strategy you're talking about. Sure, they created a consistent winning culture, but that winning culture wouldn't have meant anything if Robinson's injury hadn't put them in a position to draft Duncan. I get what you're saying about a winning culture. Some teams do get caught in a losing cycle and the corresponding mentality. I also agree with a lot of your suggestions regarding the current team, assuming we're going to keep that team together. I'm not a fan of the iso-heavy low post offense either.

But, what do you mean the Thunder's success didn't come from sucking to get high draft picks? How did they get their all-time great player? Their other two best players? The player who enabled them to land their missing piece in Perkins (I know they traded for the pick that got them Green, but still)?

If the Jazz started playing the young players more like you're suggesting, I'd have less of a problem with their current "win now" mentality. I think there's a chance they could strike a happy medium between trying to keep enough veterans around to win now and create a winning mentality and giving the young guys a chance to grow playing meaningful minutes. I just don't think the Jazz are anywhere near that medium right now. If they were, I'd be complaining less.

I'd still prefer more of a Thunder-like approach, but I understand the merits to the arguments on the other side. The idea of getting stuck on the mediocrity treadmill scares me to no end, but I can see how the possibility of getting caught up in a losing culture has the same effect on you. There are downsides to both approaches. I just think the upside to the Thunder-like approach is clearly higher.

[Jazzfan12]

Culture means virtually nothing in the NBA. Players on "bad culture" teams that are selfish are selfish because they were already selfish. The Wizards and Kings don't have players infecting each other, those teams just purposefully built teams made of ballhogs.

[countrybama24]

Bayamon,

Those perpetual bottom feeders you mention are also the worst organizations in the NBA. When you combine a good front office with high draft picks (a la blazers, thunder, spurs) you get a contender. The jazz have that kind of organization, and we're obsessed with character when drafting our players (to a fault, almost). Obviously there are bad teams with high draft picks, by definition the worst organizations will get those picks every year.

Thats why you draft winners and stay away from locker room cancers. How did the thunder crawl back from one of the worst losing seasons ever if one or two down years completely changes the culture, as you're arguing? You say they got lucky with KD, but I think they'd still be quite good. Perhaps not as elite, but I'd say if you replaced Kevin with another average #2 pick, they'd still be near top of the west. This is also why you take risks, all contenders get a little lucky, you make your own luck by putting your team in that position.

Team culture is a lot more complex than wins and losses. Your argument has just become simplistically, bad teams lose, good teams win. Step back a bit and look at the big picture.

You complain people haven't responded to the changes you propose in the starting lineup. We'll i'll complain you still haven't shown us how those changes will make this team anything better than the #8 seed. I don't think any amount of tinkering is gonna make this team contend absent another excellent wing and/or point guard. I don't have faith in free agency.

Look we're gonna be the same team in 3 yrs without jefferson / harris etc, regardless of what happens this year (a few games in playoffs aren't gonna drastically alter our core's development or their personality). The only question is do we want another player with star potential a la favors to be joining them, or an overpaid free agent.

You also seem quite antagonistic. No one is attacking you here, can we just have a discussion about our teams future without the drama?

[nguyenbalong]

First thing we need to do is stop throwing the ball into aj or sap and stand around to watch. Forthe love of god we need a passing drill ive see so many plays where the cutter beats his guy but the passer just hold the ball over his head and watch instead of passing. Ty needs to incorporate plays to deal with the zone since that has been a huge exploit against us. Defensively everyone needs to work on their man to man defense and learning when to foul. Tired of the swipe and touch fouls if your going to foul make it count. Last thing is come to compete not play. If someone isn't ready to compete than take their ass out I hate seeing evans,tinsley sitting when everyone else has thrown in the towel.

[Jazzfan12]

First thing we need to do is stop throwing the ball into aj or sap and stand around to watch. Forthe love of god we need a passing drill ive see so many plays where the cutter beats his guy but the passer just hold the ball over his head and watch instead of passing. Ty needs to incorporate plays to deal with the zone since that has been a huge exploit against us. Defensively everyone needs to work on their man to man defense and learning when to foul. Tired of the swipe and touch fouls if your going to foul make it count. Last thing is come to compete not play. If someone isn't ready to compete than take their ass out I hate seeing evans,tinsley sitting when everyone else has thrown in the towel.

The Jazz's problems on defense aren't man defense and lack of fouling, it's that the big men aren't controlling the paint. Layup line defense and few defensive rebounds.

[nguyenbalong]

They foul plenty its just the fouls are ticky tacky fouls or weak fouls that allow and one situations. I say they need to learn how to defend man to man because the guards let their man beat them one to many times leading to easy layups. They cant even defend their man let alone play team defense. Work on your man defense first than team defense. EFFORT JUST IS'NT THERE. Just frustrating knowing how good we could be. There's just a huge laundry list of things these guys need to work on. I dont think we should trade anyone or make any big moves this group has proved they can get the job done when they put Effort into their game now its just a matter of bringing everyone on the same page.