The turning point of the season

dalekjazz · Post #1 » by **dalekjazz** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 6:40 pm

In the preseason the Jazz looked fantastic. Deron said he was happy with the players the Jazz picked up. They went undefeated in the preseason. The turning point came in the preseason when the Jazz cut a lot of high energy players like Jeffers (who incidentally has signed with the Spurs), Gaines, Nichols, and Thompson. With Okur injured the Jazz decided to carry 13 players instead of 14. The message Deron got was that saving money was more important than winning games. The Jazz came out flat in regular season losing their first two game. Even though the Jazz had some big comeback wins they never consistently played a high energy 48 minute game. It was a downward spiral to what we have today.

The59Sound · Post #2 » by **The59Sound** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 6:44 pm

dalekjazz wrote:In the preseason the Jazz looked fantastic. Deron said he was happy with the players the Jazz picked up. They went undefeated in the preseason. The turning point came in the preseason when the Jazz cut a lot of high energy players like Jeffers (who incidentally has signed with the Spurs), Gaines, Nichols, and Thompson. With Okur injured the Jazz decided to carry 13 players instead of 14. The message Deron got was that saving money was more important than winning games. The Jazz came out flat in regular season losing their first two game. Even though the Jazz had some big comeback wins they never consistently played a high energy 48 minute game. It was a downward spiral to what we have today.

So, Deron got the message that we didn't want to win because we didn't sign the likes of Othyus Jeffers? And anyway, I'm pretty sure all of those guys would have played for the minimum, so there was no "money-saving" issue at hand.

As for the downward spiral, I think we're on the way back up now. I feel great about this team's future.

QuantumMacgyver · Post #3 » by **QuantumMacgyver** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 6:57 pm

The turning point of the season was when the Jazz cut Jeffers, Gaines, Nichols, and Thompson? I have a hard time buying that.The turning point was when Deron hurt his wrist and the Jazz suffered for it. This talk about the Jazz trying to save money is ridiculous. Absolutely no support for this argument after this year. I would've loved to have signed Jeffers tho.

red4hf · Post #4 » by **red4hf** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 7:33 pm

The turning point was that the Jazz got really lucky early in the season with all those comebacks......

A lot of NBA experts said that our great early record was something of a fluke...... And guess what? They were entirely right.......

Even before Deron's injury we had been playing like a sub .500 team for two and a half months...... Our lack of outside shooting, coupled with inconsistency, lack of interior defense and rebounding (mostly from Millsap but also others as well), and lack of any adjustments from Sloan completely exposed us......

The simple truth is we're not as good a team as our early record suggested.......

Jampod · Post #5 » by **Jampod** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 7:55 pm

The turning point could have been a number of things. Sloan retiring is a turning point.

UTJazzFan_Echo1 · Post #6 » by **UTJazzFan_Echo1** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 8:05 pm

The turning point was the road trip where Deron went MIA and never fully came back to be the leader of the team. I can't remember exactly who they played but I remember it was Boston first and then Philly and Deron sucked hard in both the games (some of the worse of his career). I don't think Deron or the team ever recovered from that trip.

yonexpro1 · Post #7 » by **yonexpro1** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 8:27 pm

UTJazzFan_Echo1 wrote:The turning point was the road trip where Deron went MIA and never fully came back to be the leader of the team. I can't remember exactly who they played but I remember it was Boston first and then Philly and Deron sucked hard in both the games (some of the worse of his career). I don't think Deron or the team ever recovered from that trip.

+1000000000

HolyToledo · Post #8 » by **HolyToledo** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 8:43 pm

The turning point came when the Jazz fans provided little support at the arena not giving the team the normal home court advantage that past teams had thereby leading this team to play much better on the road and unable to win a home game.

No one would have thought when the season started that Sloan would quit during the season, Dwill would be traded by the deadline while AK-47 would not be traded, and the Jazz would have a bad home record and a decent road record.

This is one bizarre team and year for the Utah Jazz!

yonexpro1 · Post #9 » by **yonexpro1** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 8:51 pm

HolyToledo wrote:The turning point came when the Jazz fans provided little support at the arena not giving the team the normal home court advantage that past teams had thereby leading this team to play much better on the road and unable to win a home game.

No one would have thought when the season started that Sloan would quit during the season, Dwill would be traded by the deadline while AK-47 would not be traded, and the Jazz would have a bad home record and a decent road record.

This is one bizarre team and year for the Utah Jazz!

First thing youve said that i agree with in some while.

leorn · Post #10 » by **leorn** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 8:53 pm

The first two games were bad, but then we went on to win 15 of 18 against a lot of good and some great teams! Then it slowly unraveled in the beginning of Dec. when we lost to Mia and Dallas twice. We could never get back to being the "comeback kids"

I think something happened sometime during Dec or early Jan off the court.

It's wild to think at one point during the season we were on pace for a 60 win season and now we are battling to get above .500.

In my mind it's gonna take this team a while to jell with the changes. Next year (if there's not a lockout) will be a good fresh start for us. If we can put together a few wins in the process of jelling for the rest of the season, I think the confidence is more important than another pick.

The59Sound · Post #11 » by **The59Sound** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 9:00 pm

HolyToledo wrote:The turning point came when the Jazz fans provided little support at the arena not giving the team the normal home court advantage that past teams had thereby leading this team to play much better on the road and unable to win a home game.

No one would have thought when the season started that Sloan would quit during the season, Dwill would be traded by the deadline while AK-47 would not be traded, and the Jazz would have a bad home record and a decent road record.

This is one bizarre team and year for the Utah Jazz!

I think the turning point was when AK's family died.

yonexpro1 · Post #12 » by **yonexpro1** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 9:08 pm

The59Sound wrote:
HolyToledo wrote:The turning point came when the Jazz fans provided little support at the arena not giving the team the normal home court advantage that past teams had thereby leading this team to play much better on the road and unable to win a home game.

No one would have thought when the season started that Sloan would quit during the season, Dwill would be traded by the deadline while AK-47 would not be traded, and the Jazz would have a bad home record and a decent road record.

This is one bizarre team and year for the Utah Jazz!

I think the turning point was when AK's family died.

HUH?

The59Sound · Post #13 » by **The59Sound** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 10:35 pm

yonexpro1 wrote:
The59Sound wrote:
HolyToledo wrote:The turning point came when the Jazz fans provided little support at the arena not giving the team the normal home court advantage that past teams had thereby leading this team to play much better on the road and unable to win a home game.

No one would have thought when the season started that Sloan would quit during the season, Dwill would be traded by the deadline while AK-47 would not be traded, and the Jazz would have a bad home record and a decent road record.

This is one bizarre team and year for the Utah Jazz!

I think the turning point was when AK's family died.

HUH?

The night before Sloan announced his resignation, HT kept telling everyone the big announcement would be that Kirilenko's wife and child had been killed.

yonexpro1 · Post #14 » by **yonexpro1** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 10:52 pm

Oh right, I remember personally going against him.

erudite23 · Post #15 » by **erudite23** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 11:18 pm

If you're looking for a turning point, it would have to be the ESPN game against Dallas in early December. We were neck and neck with them record-wise for #3 in the West, and it looked like a showdown between two Western powers...at home. Instead of that, we got hammered and everything started moving backwards. I remember at the time thinking that the Jazz looked like they had no business being on the same court with that team, and the truth of that slowly bore itself out over the next two months.

Post #16 » by **StocktonShorts** » Fri Mar 4, 2011 11:27 pm

erudite23 wrote:If you're looking for a turning point, it would have to be the ESPN game against Dallas in early December. We were neck and neck with them record-wise for #3 in the West, and it looked like a showdown between two Western powers...at home. Instead of that, we got hammered and everything started moving backwards. I remember at the time thinking that the Jazz looked like they had no business being on the same court with that team, and the truth of that slowly bore itself out over the next two months.

+1

TDIDDY · Post #17 » by **TDIDDY** » Sat Mar 5, 2011 3:58 am

erudite23 wrote:If you're looking for a turning point, it would have to be the ESPN game against Dallas in early December. We were neck and neck with them record-wise for #3 in the West, and it looked like a showdown between two Western powers...at home. Instead of that, we got hammered and everything started moving backwards. I remember at the time thinking that the Jazz looked like they had no business being on the same court with that team, and the truth of that slowly bore itself out over the next two months.

This is right around the time Deron started going to the front office and demanding that they bring in another top notch player then getting beat down by Dallas a week later didnt help. After that he began to play like crap and cry like the little girl he has been the whole time in Utah. Sloan couldnt take it anymore and the Bulls game was when he said enough is enough and walked out on the team!

If he was still the coach we'd still be in the playoffs today but Ty doesnt have a damn clue on how to coach this team. I only wish Jerry would of waited two weeks longer to get rid of the bad apple and then we wouldnt be where we are today. We might be looking at the 4-6 spot not hoping for 8th spot.

@ndrew · Post #18 » by **@ndrew** » Sat Mar 5, 2011 4:19 am

I believe, Utah is going to become a first team which won all pre-season game and miss a play-offs.

BringtheD · Post #19 » by **BringtheD** » Mon Mar 7, 2011 2:35 am

the turning point was that game at new orleans, we had a winning streak, noh were playing terrible, after that they stole our momentum and we continued to get worse, coincidentally that was the game okur made his return. there are still fans hyping his return, he is 20 m down the drain but fans ran boozer out of the state and kept the big nothing in the paint.