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The PHX Suns are who I wish the Jazz were. I don't think they are more talented, but they have significantly better coaching and structure. They adjust and can play different styles. The have money plays for every type of defense. Their players go outside of their roles and do whatever is needed. They play like underdogs even when they are the favorites.

There's a lot of similarities between the teams, but when it comes to strategy and mental toughness they are miles ahead. If Monty Williams was the coach of this team the Jazz would have been champions.

KqWIN wrote:The PHX Suns are who I wish the Jazz were. I don't think they are more talented, but they have significantly better coaching and structure. They adjust and can play different styles. The have money plays for every type of defense. Their players go outside of their roles and do whatever is needed. They play like underdogs even when they are the favorites.

There's a lot of similarities between the teams, but when it comes to strategy and mental toughness they are miles ahead. If Monty Williams was the coach of this team the Jazz would have been champions.

I like how it put here. That what I missed most in current Jazz. Current Jazz just plays. However it randomly goes on them. Everything goes good - OK, thank, we will plat good games. Something went wrong - sorry, not our fault, why "it" had to come on us that way? We will paly better nest time when "it" will behave properly.

Carlisle just agreed to become the head coach of the Pacers. One coach off the board.

The initial analysis of the Suns' game winning play in game two against the Clippers primarily focused on Ayton's finish and Booker's screen to help free Ayton, but I thought the most impressive part of that play was Crowder's perfectly threaded, perfectly timed and perfectly placed inbounds pass from a challenging angle. Following the score, Crowder walked up the court like this was all in a good day's work. I would have been doing cartwheels. Lol.

Crunch 99 wrote:The initial analysis of the Suns' game winning play in game two against the Clippers primarily focused on Ayton's finish and Booker's screen to help free Ayton, but I thought the most impressive part of that play was Crowder's perfectly threaded, perfectly timed and perfectly landed inbounds pass from a challenging angle. Following the score, Crowder walked up the court like this was all in a good day's work. I would have been doing cartwheels. Lol.

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Really miss the Junk Yard Dog, loved him when he was here.

Should the NBA just call off the playoffs at this point, name the Suns the Champs/Team Able to Stay Most Healthy, and be done with it? Bigger asterisk needed on this season than the bubble or the strike season, IMO. No reflection on the best team winning, just the luckiest. Injuries are every year, and have an impact, but the star-level injuries this year are beyond anything we've ever seen by a landslide.

zero24gravity wrote:Should the NBA just call off the playoffs at this point, name the Suns the Champs/Team Able to Stay Most Healthy, and be done with it? Bigger asterisk needed on this season than the bubble or the strike season, IMO. No reflection on the best team winning, just the luckiest. Injuries are every year, and have an impact, but the star-level injuries this year are beyond anything we've ever seen by a landslide.

Eh. I definitely agree about all the injuries, but had the Jazz been the ones to win a championship, I'm sure we'd all be celebrating it and saying that it counts just as any other. The reality is, in a few years no one will remember the circumstances that led to this year's championship. All that people will remember is that the Suns\Hawks\Bucks won a championship. Can't believe I'm even writing such a sentence.

Inigo Montoya wrote:

zero24gravity wrote:Should the NBA just call off the playoffs at this point, name the Suns the Champs/Team Able to Stay Most Healthy, and be done with it? Bigger asterisk needed on this season than the bubble or the strike season, IMO. No reflection on the best team winning, just the luckiest. Injuries are every year, and have an impact, but the star-level injuries this year are beyond anything we've ever seen by a landslide.

Eh. I definitely agree about all the injuries, but had the Jazz been the ones to win a championship, I'm sure we'd all be celebrating it and saying that it counts just as any other. The reality is, in a few years no one will remember the circumstances that led to this year's championship. All that people will remember is that the Suns\Hawks\Bucks won a championship. Can't believe I'm even writing such a sentence.

You're not wrong.

The Hawks would have been like an 8th seed in the West (and I'm sure lost to the Jazz!), the Bucks are my only hope for a semi-legit champ this year, and that's in serious doubt with Giannis' injury. Suns seem like a favorite at this point, but have played nobody with their top 2 players in-tact. (Sorry, but playing the freakin' Hawks "in-tact" wouldn't make it seem more legit.) Can you think of an easier path ever?

The way the Jazz went out was bad enough, but then seeing how things are unfolding is just frustrating. I would have rather seen the collude-to-buy-a-title-Nets win, because it at least makes sense.

You guys are seriously underrating the hawks. After McMillan took over they had the best record in the nba. They are deep with a ton of weapons offensively and a great rim running and defensive big in Capella. Obviously injuries have played a big factor but they are an extremely talented basketball team. You can make a strong case that there top 2 in Young and Capella are everybit as good as Mitchell and Gobert. The rest of there role players I like better.

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sip wrote:You guys are seriously underrating the hawks. After McMillan took over they had the best record in the nba. They are deep with a ton of weapons offensively and a great rim running and defensive big in Capella. Obviously injuries have played a big factor but they are an extremely talented basketball team. You can make a strong case that there top 2 in Young and Capella are everybit as good as Mitchell and Gobert. The rest of there role players I like better.

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You are 100% correct, I thought the same thing. Utah also was good too quick and the Hawks built through the draft having high picks, how much better would we be with Collin?

sip wrote:You guys are seriously underrating the hawks. After McMillan took over they had the best record in the nba. They are deep with a ton of weapons offensively and a great rim running and defensive big in Capella. Obviously injuries have played a big factor but they are an extremely talented basketball team. You can make a strong case that there top 2 in Young and Capella are everybit as good as Mitchell and Gobert. The rest of there role players I like better.

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Are the Hawks a bad team. No. Are they scary or worthy of a Conference Finals, let alone NBA Finals appearance .... absolutely not. I'm happy they beat the Sixers, though, so they still get a small fan-card from me.

I prefer the size, strength & defensive upside of Donovan, to go along with both of their great shot-making ability. Still, if you want to say Young & DM are in the same tier, I'll give you that.

...But saying Capela even sniffs Gobert's All NBA stature is silly. The numbers don't lie. The only areas Clint surpasses Rudy are in rebounding & steals by a small margin, & slightly lower TO's (because he handles the ball less, I'm sure). I mean, it's not even close, otherwise. Winshares (8.2 vs 11.3), shooting %'s (59% vs 68% FG, 60% vs 68% True shooting), FT% by 5% (and Rudy shoots nearly 3 times as many FT's), 0.7 more blocks per 36 minutes, assists are 50% higher, defensive box +/- is laughably better (Capela is NEGATIVE 0.2 vs Rudy at +2.5), Real +/- (3.35 vs 6.55), RMP Wins (9.12 vs 16.52). The lists goes on and on. His playoff numbers are a bit closer in some areas, but still below Rudy nearly across the board.

Sorry but Clint Capella is very close to Rudy as a player. He brings similar production at both ends of the court and defensively he isn't far off.

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I really liked the moves the Hawks made in the past year and a half, starting with trading for Capella, and then bringing on Gallinari, Bogdan, Lou, etc. I thought they had a really nice team with good depth, but in no way did I think when the season started that they may get all the way to the NBA finals. I can't imagine many people did. I don't think it's underrating the Hawks, I just believe that a healthy Hawks team in a healthy East would have had a very small chance of getting as far as they did with all the injuries that actually happened.

Two interesting Hawks' turn of events stories are Nate McMillan and Lou Williams. McMillan was (wrongly imo) fired one year ago when his Pacers squad, playing without Sabonis and with Victor Oladipo only a shell of his old self, were swept by the deeper Heat. Fast forward to today: McMillan was named interim head coach of the Hawks on March 1; the Hawks went on to have the best winning percentage in the East over the remaining regular season games and the Hawks are still alive in the playoffs. The Pacers didn't make the playoffs.

Lou Williams was distraught when he was traded to the Hawks last March; he did not report right away and he seriously contemplated retiring, figuring that this was his last season and that he had just lost his chance to finish his career in a playoff run. Fast forward to today: Lou decided to report to the Hawks and the Hawks are still alive in the playoffs. In game four of the ECF, Williams turned back the clock to summon up an outstanding, game winning performance: 21 points on 9 attempts in 35 minutes of play with 8 assists and 1 tov in a start for the injured Trae Young. Meanwhile, the Clippers were eliminated.

Who knows which players will be active for game six and whether the Hawks can stave off elimination, but I've been enjoying seeing Nate and Lou still competing after the Pacers and Clips gave up on them.

It sickens me we didn’t give Portis the MLE.

sip wrote:Sorry but Clint Capella is very close to Rudy as a player. He brings similar production at both ends of the court and defensively he isn't far off.

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I guess this is an eye-test comparison vs actual measurable data. In that case, ok, hard to argue with opinion.

Crunch 99 wrote:Two interesting Hawks' turn of events stories are Nate McMillan and Lou Williams. McMillan was (wrongly imo) fired one year ago when his Pacers squad, playing without Sabonis and with Victor Oladipo only a shell of his old self, were swept by the deeper Heat. Fast forward to today: McMillan was named interim head coach of the Hawks on March 1; the Hawks went on to have the best winning percentage in the East over the remaining regular season games and the Hawks are still alive in the playoffs. The Pacers didn't make the playoffs.

Lou Williams was distraught when he was traded to the Hawks last March; he did not report right away and he seriously contemplated retiring, figuring that this was his last season and that he had just lost his chance to finish his career in a playoff run. Fast forward to today: Lou decided to report to the Hawks and the Hawks are still alive in the playoffs. In game four of the ECF, Williams turned back the clock to summon up an outstanding, game winning performance: 21 points on 9 attempts in 35 minutes of play with 8 assists and 1 tov in a start for the injured Trae Young. Meanwhile, the Clippers were eliminated.

Who knows which players will be active for game six and whether the Hawks can stave off elimination, but I've been enjoying seeing Nate and Lou still competing after the Pacers and Clips gave up on them.

This is even more impressive than Suns (making bold to win championship) trade of Kidd for Marbury about 20 years ago? when Suns missed playoff and Nets went all way to Final

I think the Suns have a bit better, deeper and more balanced roster than the Jazz, especially a better playoff roster, but man, the Suns went through a lot of pain, disappointment and lottery years to get where they are. This season was preceded by ten consecutive years of missing the playoffs, along with mixing, matching and trading high lottery picks, and still losing every season. I suspect a lot of Jazz fans, who have never been subjected to multiple years of losing, would have lost patience with the team with ten years of losing, withdrawn support and gone back to primarily supporting the local college teams if that had happened here.

It appears that the Suns finally traded for veteran point guard CP3 to help bring the accumulated talent together right at the perfect moment, but I would not have predicted that 35 year old CP3 would have suited up for 70 out of 72 regular season games, suited up for 16 out of 18 playoff games (the two playoff games he missed were for covid protocol, not for injury) and played at an All Star level for most of those games. I would have been wrong. Lol.

Besides the Suns roster being built on ten years of losing and lottery picks, the other team that went further than us, the Clippers, partially built their team with two advantages that the Utah Jazz will never get: one, they are located in one of the top two or three destinations where top name free agents like to play, LA, and two, the Clips/LA can also attract capable veteran players like Batum and Reggie Jackson for a grand total of 3.2 million dollars in combined salary. Utah might have to pay 20 million dollars or more in salary to get two veterans of similar quality.

So I am excusing the Jazz front office a little bit, but I agree with all those who criticize Lindsey's recent pick of Azubuike and acquisition of Favors shortly thereafter, along with the mid season acquisition of Matt Thomas, when it seemed pretty clear that we were in need of good sized, three and D switchable big wings, or even a two way, small ball, inside/outside center, rather than in need of two old fashioned big men backups and a small, backup shooting guard. I would have liked to have seen Illyasova get some more run, but I am assuming that he didn't get more run because he probably wasn't showing well on defense in practice.

Mavericks Working To Hire Igor Kokoskov As Assistant Coach
https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/263331/Mavericks-Working-To-Hire-Igor-Kokoskov-As-Assistant-Coach

TNJazz wrote:

Crunch 99 wrote:

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Really miss the Junk Yard Dog, loved him when he was here.

Yep, Jae brought some toughness and has gone on to become a high percentage, three point shooter as well. But Jae was "The Beast" whereas Demarre Carroll was "The Junkyard Dog". There isn't a strong likelihood, but I would love for the Jazz to find another underutilized, underpaid, defensive minded, Junkyard Dog wing right now.