2018-19 Utah Jazz Regular Season Thread

[zero24gravity]

A reminder that the Jazz's most recent 1st round pick has been totally MIA from the roster/rotation. Forgotten man for a reason?

With Ex's injury, we may see him back on the active roster, but I still doubt he'll see the court. Raul is pretty steady & Royce is more likely to pick up minutes with Ex & Thabo out.

Just thought I'd bring up the forgotten draft pick, since I've seen more recent mentions of Tony "f-ing" Bradley (mostly about trading him), than he who not be named.

[Inigo Montoya]

"He who shall not be named" is currently injured, and has been for a while.

[TNJazz]

The rook's injury is listed as ankle, same as Dante, hope Ex heals faster than the rook!

[zero24gravity]

"He who shall not be named" is currently injured, and has been for a while.

I knew he got hurt, but for some reason I though that he was back with the Stars. Didn't realize it was a longer term injury. Huh, well there ya go... verification that he's barely thought about by some (me), since I didn't realize his status. lol

[anish23]

Next 4 games are must wins.

[stitches]

Read on Twitter

[Rauxcee]

Read on Twitter

That's worse than I thought. It's something that has been very noticeable, and I wonder why the reason for that is.

[KqWIN]

Read on Twitter

That's worse than I thought. It's something that has been very noticeable, and I wonder why the reason for that is.

His attempts at the rim have also dropped significantly. 26% in his rookie year to 19% this season. Those shots have basically been shifted to floater range shots, which he is horrible at. Only shooting 33%.

He's been terrible on drives and terrible as a shooter. The only thing he's been good at is mid range jumpers, which is good but also the worst shot in basketball. Mitchell is like the anti Harden right now. He can't score at the rim, behind the 3 point line, or from the FT line.

[stitches]

Read on Twitter

That's worse than I thought. It's something that has been very noticeable, and I wonder why the reason for that is.

It's almost certain it's the injury. Dunks are almost always reflective of the shape the player is in and the level of explosiveness he's got. Remember how Favs number of dunks the year he was injured was halved... and then trippled the following year when he got healthy. I think it's quite obvious he still hasn't gotten his explosiveness back after he spent the whole summer recovering and not playing basketball. This would explain many other things like his restricted area attempts and finishing and his FTs being low too.

[sipclip]

I feel like the paint has also been a lot more crowded this year than last year as well without Jerebko as the stretch 4 and teams simply caring less about chasing our guys around the perimeter. Keeping Udoh over Jerebko is one of the more head scratching moves a gm will make in a league that puts such a premium on spacing and shooting the 3 ball.

Sent from my SM-G960U using RealGM mobile app

[SoCalJazzFan]

Read on Twitter

I think that this is a bit deceiving.

I look up the stats and basketballreference shows that DM had 47 dunks on 57 attempts in all of 2017/18. So, if he had 42 dunks at this time last season, teams started to scout him and defended the rim much better the next time that they played him, which is transferring over to this year. The shots at the rim (277/435 last season to 79/131 so far this season) supports the position that teams aren't giving open looks of the rim to Donovan any more. My eye test of DM driving into two or three defenders near the rim also supports this.

[zero24gravity]

Read on Twitter

I think that this is a bit deceiving.

I look up the stats and basketballreference shows that DM had 47 dunks on 57 attempts in all of 2017/18. So, if he had 42 dunks at this time last season, teams started to scout him and defended the rim much better the next time that they played him, which is transferring over to this year. The shots at the rim (277/435 last season to 79/131 so far this season) supports the position that teams aren't giving open looks of the rim to Donovan any more. My eye test of DM driving into two or three defenders near the rim also supports this.

.... which leads me to say that he needs to learn how to get fouled. I'm not talking Harden-garbage, but he needs to figure out a way to get to the line more often.

Getting fouled just once or twice (average 1.5 times = 3 more FT's) more a game would result in about 2 more points per game (assuming he hits just 2 of 3 FT's) and would increase his FG% from 40.9% to 44.7%. (Taking 1.5 missed FG's a game off his average, because if you get fouled the shot attempt doesn't count.) An increase of 3 FT's would put him right around D-Lil & DeRozan territory.

That's HUGE! Would anyone say Donovan wasn't much more efficient (even if he was still at 31% on 3's) if he was shooting 45% from the field & scoring 22.4 ppg?

[Inigo Montoya]

Just saw this, thought it was interesting:

The Utah Jazz have ten players on their roster with incentives written into their contract for reaching off-court or on-court benchmarks, which is far more than any other team in the NBA.

These bonuses come in three types for the Jazz: on-court performance bonuses, health and health management bonuses, and offseason workout bonuses.

Rudy Gobert can make up to $2 million extra per season for incremental bonuses such as being First Team All-Defense.

Several players get a bonus if the Jazz have a defensive rating under 100 while they're on the floor.

Derrick Favors' contract contains incentives for weight and body fat percentage.

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/252211/Jazz-Lead-NBA-In-Incentive-Laden-Contracts

Larsen's full article: https://www.sltrib.com/sports/2019/01/10/more-than-any-team-nba/

[zero24gravity]

Just saw this, thought it was interesting:

The Utah Jazz have ten players on their roster with incentives written into their contract for reaching off-court or on-court benchmarks, which is far more than any other team in the NBA.

These bonuses come in three types for the Jazz: on-court performance bonuses, health and health management bonuses, and offseason workout bonuses.

Rudy Gobert can make up to $2 million extra per season for incremental bonuses such as being First Team All-Defense.

Several players get a bonus if the Jazz have a defensive rating under 100 while they're on the floor.

Derrick Favors' contract contains incentives for weight and body fat percentage.

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/252211/Jazz-Lead-NBA-In-Incentive-Laden-Contracts

Larsen's full article: https://www.sltrib.com/sports/2019/01/10/more-than-any-team-nba/

I really like this model. However, I'd like to know how this works with the salary cap. If they make $2 in bonus, I assume that has to go against the cap, so when a player signs and has a $12m cap hit with $2m in possible bonus, does that mean he's getting $10m base with $2m being non-guaranteed, or does it mean he gets $12m, and could get $14m. Seems impossible to manage the cap unless it's the first option. That would also mean that the team's actual cap # is super fluid and typically under the reported numbers. (Since it's unlikely every player will reach every goal.)

[vryadli]

If one take into account home-road game numbers, Jazz now kind of better than Lakers and Spurs.

Though Lakers will improve if LeBron come back and Spurs are in good stretch just now so to climb over them can be not so simple.

[Crunch 99]

Read on Twitter

Did Mitchell read this tweet or what? That dunk over Javale McGee Friday night was incredible!

I agree with you that he likely did not start the season 100% after spending part of the summer with a boot on. And at Mitchell's small size, a less than 100% Mitchell doesn't get you very far. Mitchell needs to be pretty close to 100% healthy to efficiently score through much bigger players in the paint imo.

[LesGrossman]

If one take into account home-road game numbers, Jazz now kind of better than Lakers and Spurs.

Though Lakers will improve if LeBron come back and Spurs are in good stretch just now so to climb over them can be not so simple.

I dont think Jazz can get past the spurs, but thy can outperform the lakers, the clippers and portland.

[ForeverRDjazz]

If one take into account home-road game numbers, Jazz now kind of better than Lakers and Spurs.

Though Lakers will improve if LeBron come back and Spurs are in good stretch just now so to climb over them can be not so simple.

I dont think Jazz can get past the spurs, but thy can outperform the lakers, the clippers and portland.

I think Spurs are a sprain away from falling behind Utah. Anything can happen. Jazz keep playing D like I seen the other night they could be top 3 this year? Very high level of D. DM keeps playing at the level he has the last few game with top D? Spurs can be caught.

[KqWIN]

Jazz legends did us a solid against the Lakers tonight

[anish23]

Next game will be a tough one in LA. If we win we will be on a 5 game win streak .