The problem with the Jazz conservative approach

[dalekjazz]

Jerry Sloan was once asked about obtaining Dennis Rodman when the Jazz were a championship contender. His response was that if the Jazz tried to get him he would retire as Jazz head coach and that there were more important things than a championship. This is exactly what is wrong with the Jazz management. They value a player's background and ability to work with Sloan over the player's talent. Rodman despite his baggage was a proven winner, but so many times the Jazz are unwilling to take the extra step needed to go for the championship. They take the conservative approach and commit to "good company guys" like Jarron Collins who have limited talent. Malone and Stockton were exceptional players who were "good company guys" but also brought toughness to the Jazz on the court. Now the Jazz have just become a team known league wide as a soft team that can easily be pushed around.
Jerry Sloan and the Jazz are unwilling to make risky moves and bring guys with baggages like Ron Artest or Birdman which would add some much needed toughness.
A team like the Nuggets was willing to take a risk on Birdman because they want the championship and now its paying dividends. The Nuggets are now the new bad boys of the NBA called the Thuggets and a team which can legitimately contend with the Lakers and Cavs. If the Jazz want the championship instead of merely being consistently good every year, they have to change their conservative approach and start bringing in game changing player.

[The Sheik]

The Nuggets are now the new bad boys of the NBA called the Thuggets

LMAO...says who? They finally just won a playoff series, lets not overreact here. Im not saying their not talented, but quite overreacting. And they were called the Thuggets because their players kept getting arrested, or spit on women in clubs, and just their general demeanor of thuggery. Actually its the fact that they've matured somewhat on and off the court that has lead to their success this season.

[HolyToledo]

I agree Jazz are overly conservative. Jazz would have never signed the Birdman. Jazz would have given Lakers a series if they had birdman

[Lava Rock Kid]

I agree with the theme of this post. Jazz are stupid with their character guys. Birdman or Artest would of helped them out a great deal this year.

[DelaneyRudd]

They have shown willingness to go with low risk high reward guys who had character issues like drafting Deshawn, Snyder, Whaley, Fesenko. Hell, the Jazz might be leading in former players in Jail right now. (Keon Clark, Robert Whaley, Kirk Snyder). I do support it as a key component of the JAzz philosophy, but not to go overboard. We don't want a major investment to be under contract and a real cancer. Sure Artest is helping the Rockets right now, but the Rockets aren't Atest's second chance. He's the third. The odds of a third chance player turning it around long enough to be worth it are as good as having the highest paid player in the league on your team get injured and then become much better. Rockets are on one fortunate ass streak.

[OC Jazzfan]

Not signing Rodman, Artest, or Andersen hardly makes a team conservative. JFC. The Jazz have signed/traded for/drafted some huge low character characters. Get a grip.

[outerspacefella]

I agree Jazz are overly conservative. Jazz would have never signed the Birdman. Jazz would have given Lakers a series if they had birdman

Birdman was he typical high risk high reward thing that normally lean toward a crappy story... yet in this case he ended up as one of the best paint players in the league. I mean... he's just the best shot blocker in the league right now, an energetic, serious one on one defender, and even a more than acceptable escape valve in offense...

Conservative or not, I really don't think anybody thought anything like that would happen... right Andersen is a MLE type of guy to say the least...

[outerspacefella]

.... Rockets are on one fortunate ass streak.

All their "fortune" is a man laying on the bench in a nice suit... very good scorer but one of the most consistent worst decision makers in the game...

[Neon Black]

I agree to a point with the fact that the Jazz can be overly conservative, but...Ron Artest?

If you mosey on over to the Rocket's board you will get a negative general consensus on him. Rocket's fans say they're sick of him neglecting the open man just to go one on one half of the time; on a recent player's poll he was the one person that everyone would least want to play with; that goes a long way.

He's tough and talented, but in this case his character flaws are too much. People like Birdman, on the other hand, I could actually see working in our system; but you can't fault anyone for not picking him up - nobody new he would become this good.

Toughness is definitely key, and definitely something we lack. But you don't have to have a prison record to be mentally tough on the court. Kirk Snyder was an underachiever. Teams like the Celtics are aggressive and mean, but still subscribe to a system and listen to their coach. You have to find a balance.

[erudite23]

How about we talk about "the problem" with the opposite approach?

When a team takes one or two gambles on bad character guys, it can go south really fast. Imagine the list of malcontent, ugly teams that could be assembled from just this decade. The Jail Blazers. Indiana's three ring circus that they are still trying to recover from. The Knicks. Vin Baker to the Celtics. Cleveland pre-LeBron (and even the first year he was there). I could go on and on.

Name me one team this decade that won a championship by bringing on character risk guys to play central roles who ended up panning out. Detroit in 2004. That's it.

And that's what we're talking about, is it not? Winning a ring? Because we've gotten to basically every other goal we could ask for as a team besides that. We've won the division. We've reached the conference finals. We've made the playoffs for three straight years. Etc etc.

Now look at the alternative. Here you are, just a little man watching the TV hoping your team does well. You have very little at stake. If this team implodes, you just quit watching, quit going to games, quit caring, until they recover and you can re-invest yourself. For guys like KOC, GM, Rigby, Sloan et al, their jobs are on the line. More importantly, this franchise is on the line. With a city and culture like Salt Lake's, this team would never survive an era of ball like the one that happened in Portland, the one that is just ending in Indy, or the like. It would end basketball in Utah, period. The franchise would turn into a money pit, fans would stop attending games and the only choice ownership would have would be relocation.

Meanwhile, with this "conservative" approach has netted the city a 50-win caliber team for 3 straight seasons, while being one of the youngest and most inexperienced teams in the league with (presumably) plenty of room for growth. Its gotten us Deron Williams. Its gotten us Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur. Excellent players.

The reality that you are missing here is where the bottom line in the NBA really lies. It takes transcendent players to win championships. MJ. Bird. Magic. Shaq. LeBron. Hakeem. Duncan. Its ignorant to think you can expect to win championships without a player like that. It just doesn't happen much, and in order to make it happen you have to have a deep, talented squad of excellent players who work well together and fill specific roles within a system.

So, we have to choices. 1) Lose games in the hopes of lucking out in the draft.

Or 2) build a team around solid fundamentals, discipline, teamwork and selflessness by getting as many good, solid guys as we can find.



Don't act like Dennis Rodmans or Rasheed Wallaces make the difference in winning championships. For teams that take risks like that, it is the EXCEPTION rather than the rule. Chicago could only take Rodman on because it had a strong team structure that was ALREADY based upon character, teamwork and winning before everything, along with strong personalities that demanded respect like MJ and Phil.

It was similar with Rasheed.

But even in those instances, those teams were extremely fortunate. Those players represented opportunities that are few and far between. In order for that to work, first there had to be: 1) a team that was already championship (or nearly so) caliber; 2) a specific role that the team was lacking that the player could provide; 3) the framework in place to control the weakness of that player; 4) and this being most important, the right player had to be available for the right price at the right time.

If Chicago had been required to trade Toni Kukoc or Ron Harper to get Rodman, they probably don't do it. If Detroit hadn't been able to get Rasheed (who was an expiring contract) for Chucky freakin Atkins and a late 1st, they wouldn't have done it.

This kind of talk is the province of short-sighted (or maybe just abjectly stupid) people.

Are the Jazz conservative? Yeah. But they've shown that they understand the need to take some gambles, and they've done it at times. They acquired John Amaechi, a move that was risky at the time and blew up in their face, because they needed a quality big man so badly. They drafted DeShawn when he was plainly not the type of guy that would fit in here. They swung for the fences with Borchardt because, again, they knew they would need a quality big.

The reality here is that the Jazz need to get lucky with a dominant big guy or with a transendent wing before they can expect to win it all. They might be able to earn a championship otherwise (like they nearly did with Stock and Malone) by just taking the approach that they've been taking and making a succession of solid moves, but its not likely. They know that.

The alternative, though, is to make stupid decisions based upon a long shot chance that they could pan out and vault us to the top of the league. Decisions that will ultimately kill our chances of even being competitive for 2,3, or 4 year stretches at a time.

I know people get frustrated with being "almost there" and in moments of weakness make statements like "if you're not first you're last." But the reality is that just being in the mix is enjoyable. That's something to appreciate. And if you stay "in the mix" long enough, you never know what can happen.

In the meantime, lets not pretend like the Spurs, the Lakers, the Heat, or the Rockets won their championships by skill. The lucked into dominant big guys. In case you haven't noticed, that's where most of the Larry O'Brien trophies go.

[JDubJazz]

...In the meantime, lets not pretend like the Spurs, the Lakers, the Heat, or the Rockets won their championships by skill. The lucked into dominant big guys. In case you haven't noticed, that's where most of the Larry O'Brien trophies go.

Thank you. That is a point that is so rarely understood, though I would dispute the "big guys" portion. "Transcendant" guys like Jordan, LeBron, or Wade don't necessarily need dominant bigs (it doesn't hurt though).

As far as the Jazz go, I think the more interesting model to look at would not be a Lakers or Bulls (the transcendant player) and not a Detroit (quality guys who got lucky), but rather the Boston model: THREE stars.

Most teams with transcendant stars can only match one other star to go with them: Jordan & Pippen, Kobe & Shaq, LeBron and ??? (Mo Williams), Wade and Shaq. If you can cobble together three legitimate stars like KG, Pierce and Allen, then you are going to be a matchup nightmare to every other team in the league as long as you aren't running total stiffs out there with them.

The Jazz already have one top shelf star in Deron Williams, and despite popular sentiment, they might have two (in a healthy Carlos Boozer). The Jazz are among the deepest teams in the league and have a ton of tradeable assets. That why I think we need to do whatever it takes to cash in that depth and find one more top shelf STAR. That would vault the Jazz back into true championship contention better than any amount of roster "tweaking" the front office could do.

The odds of getting the "transcendant" player are astronmically against the Jazz's favor, due to the relative scarceity of those guys, the Jazz's already competive record (no good picks) and the difficulty in luring one of those guys to play in cold weather. Given the Jazz's roster and the current financial climate though, there is no reason a creative Jazz GM couldn't leverage his depth and another team's desire to avoid the luxury tax into a legitimate top shelf star to team with Deron and Carlos.

Thats the only way I can see to bring an NBA championship banner to Utah.

[carrottop12]

It is funny that the Jazz are so conservative because when they do go for a home run they usually get it. Okur was a big signing, Boozer was a big signing, trading up on draft day was a big deal to get Deron.

It's annoying that they aren't more aggressive, maybe Greg will want to be more aggressive then Larry was.

[erudite23]

...In the meantime, lets not pretend like the Spurs, the Lakers, the Heat, or the Rockets won their championships by skill. The lucked into dominant big guys. In case you haven't noticed, that's where most of the Larry O'Brien trophies go.

Thank you. That is a point that is so rarely understood, though I would dispute the "big guys" portion. "Transcendant" guys like Jordan, LeBron, or Wade don't necessarily need dominant bigs (it doesn't hurt though).

As far as the Jazz go, I think the more interesting model to look at would not be a Lakers or Bulls (the transcendant player) and not a Detroit (quality guys who got lucky), but rather the Boston model: THREE stars.

Most teams with transcendant stars can only match one other star to go with them: Jordan & Pippen, Kobe & Shaq, LeBron and ??? (Mo Williams), Wade and Shaq. If you can cobble together three legitimate stars like KG, Pierce and Allen, then you are going to be a matchup nightmare to every other team in the league as long as you aren't running total stiffs out there with them.

The Jazz already have one top shelf star in Deron Williams, and despite popular sentiment, they might have two (in a healthy Carlos Boozer). The Jazz are among the deepest teams in the league and have a ton of tradeable assets. That why I think we need to do whatever it takes to cash in that depth and find one more top shelf STAR. That would vault the Jazz back into true championship contention better than any amount of roster "tweaking" the front office could do.

The odds of getting the "transcendant" player are astronmically against the Jazz's favor, due to the relative scarceity of those guys, the Jazz's already competive record (no good picks) and the difficulty in luring one of those guys to play in cold weather. Given the Jazz's roster and the current financial climate though, there is no reason a creative Jazz GM couldn't leverage his depth and another team's desire to avoid the luxury tax into a legitimate top shelf star to team with Deron and Carlos.

Thats the only way I can see to bring an NBA championship banner to Utah.

Well thought out and to the point.

I think we probably disagree from a technical standpoint, but not necessarily in essence.

I think what the Jazz need to do is just get the best players they can possibly get. Concentrate on getting quality players with their draft picks. Look for bargains on the FA market and try to take advantage of fire sales or other likely trade opportunities.

When the Jazz signed Boozer, they weren't thinking that they were getting a star. Or with Memo. Or, really, even with DWill. They just evaluate talent and look to get the best players to fit their system.

If they can be successful that way, I think eventually you will see them become roughly good enough to contend for the title, even though they will likely never win it. The problem with the NBA is that, even when you have a championship caliber TEAM, you still have to contend with the way the game is called in favor of superstars. The Jazz are the posterboys for this phenomenon, so we should know. We had as good a team as any to never win a title. Really, we have as good a team as any that lacked either a dominant true big man or an unbelievable wing talent with an unusual combination of skills (Magic, MJ, Bird, Dr. J, Big O, LeBron etc)....or both

But we just aren't getting one of those players, so all you can do is enjoy competing, keep trying to get the best players you can get your hands on, and build on what you have. Taking a chance on a Ron Artest or a Chris Anderson is not going to get us over the hump. It just isn't. Getting the next David Robinson or Hakeem Olajuwon is going to get us over it.

Have fun with that.

[OC Jazzfan]

How about we talk about "the problem" with the opposite approach?

DING! DING! DING! Knockout!!!

Excellent, excellent post. Outta the park.

[ColdBlue]

Taking a chance on a Ron Artest or a Chris Anderson is not going to get us over the hump. It just isn't. Getting the next David Robinson or Hakeem Olajuwon is going to get us over it.

Have fun with that.

You are right, it isn't. So I'm guessing you think we should overhaul this team? Or are you a fan of perpetual mediocrity?

[FJS]

If you have the reputation of being a conservative state, and then you don't like "problematic" character, you are giving the image of being an attractive place to go.