2019 Utah Jazz Off Season Thread

[KqWIN]

Some "shocking" numbers from Locke's podcast.

Shots taken from passes from Donovan Mitchell:

Jae's expected eFG (from an average shooter) - 57%
Jae's actual eFG - 46%

Rubio's expected eFG - 56%
Rubio's actual eFG - 39.6%

Favors expected eFG - 62%
Favors actual eFG - 48%

Whoa boy....

Bojan last year +5%
Conley last year +1.3%
Green last year +3%

[stitches]

Seems like Dante is back in SLC for open gym:

[KqWIN]

The last piece of business this off-season is Royce O'Neale's potential contract extension. Nate and Danny settled in on 3/$16.5M ($5.5M flat). Seems like a good deal for a guy who is our 6th best player. I'm confident in Royce, I'd try to lock him up on a cheap deal.

[stitches]

The thing with Royce is... you want to be the team to find a player like him, I'm not sure I want to be the team to pay him the big bucks. If this was the price I'd probably do it, but I'm wary of it becoming a Jonathon Simmons type of situation where he becomes unplayable and you have to keep paying him a nice salary for years to come. I guess as long as we are locked into this team(it won't hinder us from signing other FAs because we will be over the salary cap anyways) it shouldn't be a problem really.

[KqWIN]

The thing with Royce is... you want to be the team to find a player like him, I'm not sure I want to be the team to pay him the big bucks. If this was the price I'd probably do it, but I'm wary of it becoming a Jonathon Simmons type of situation where he becomes unplayable and you have to keep paying him a nice salary for years to come. I guess as long as we are locked into this team(it won't hinder us from signing other FAs because we will be over the salary cap anyways) it shouldn't be a problem really.

That's fair...it just depends on the price. The other side of this is that you might miss out on an opportunity to lock in a good player at a good price. Mitchell and Gobert are getting close to blowing up our cap. Rotation players at cheap prices will become gold.

[red4hf]

The thing with Royce is... you want to be the team to find a player like him, I'm not sure I want to be the team to pay him the big bucks. If this was the price I'd probably do it, but I'm wary of it becoming a Jonathon Simmons type of situation where he becomes unplayable and you have to keep paying him a nice salary for years to come. I guess as long as we are locked into this team(it won't hinder us from signing other FAs because we will be over the salary cap anyways) it shouldn't be a problem really.

While that's a fair point, a $5.5 mil annual salary is basically half of the MLE...... And Royce has gotten better every year...... I think it would be a sound investment......

[pickIBL]

Whatever money the jazz have.... give it all to Pukki lol. Is it a violation if our pg brings it up with his feet... then kicks it up to gobert for the slam?

[red4hf]

Whatever money the jazz have.... give it all to Pukki lol. Is it a violation if our pg brings it up with his feet... then kicks it up to gobert for the slam?

Biggest upset this century? That was one hell of a game......

[pickIBL]

The liverpool comeback on the 2nd leg was the wildest thing i've ever seen. The nuggets comeback against the sonics also ranks up there. But that match yesterday was like the durham bulls thrashing the ny yankees. It was beautiful.

[red4hf]

Tottenham's comeback against Ajax last year, and that goal by Lucas Moura as time pretty much expired was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen......

[KqWIN]

Less than two weeks away from camp. Dante checking in at 100%...but for how long?

[Crunch 99]

Sports Illustrated NBA Top 100 for 2019-20 Season
https://www.si.com/nba/top-100-nba-players-2020#20-11



#65 Joe Ingles

The best role players aren’t just doing a job, but defining it. Utah might not have explicitly planned for Joe Ingles to be an essential secondary creator—it just turned out that way because he was too savvy a pick-and-roll player to be waiting in the wings. So Quin Snyder turned Ingles loose over the past few seasons to find just how far his creativity would stretch. There are clear limits. In a first-round loss to the Rockets, Ingles was stifled into five of the worst games of his career. The Jazz frankly needed more than he could give; Ingles was sapped as a playmaker by defensive switches, and stuck when his three-point shot abandoned him. One of the best things about Ingles is that he knows exactly who he is as a player. There is no delusion to his game. If there’s no opening, he won’t shoot. If there’s no angle, he won’t drive. That kind of restraint—born of the fact that Ingles isn’t exactly quick enough to blow past anyone—can be inhibiting at times, though it’s far more often a blessing than a curse. Let the stars be stars. Ingles will fill in where he can to make their lives simpler.

[Crunch 99]

#52 Bojan Bogdanović

We really can’t say enough about the fact that following Victor Oladipo’s season-ending injury, the Pacers yoked their offense to Bojan Bogdanović and made it to 48 wins. Their season was a collective triumph, but everything would have fallen apart had Bogdanović not been able to scale within his role. It’s easier said than done. Even some of the best perimeter shooters in the league can be limited by overplaying defenses. Bogdanović has the counters needed to work around that sort of pressure: the backdoor cuts, the step-through moves, and the handle to turn a potential three into a downhill drive. That full suite of skills allowed Bogdanović to fake his way as a first-option scorer for a time, but he’s more comfortably cast in the kind of supporting role he’ll find in Utah. In that regard, it’s nice that Bogdanović isn’t just a shooter. Indiana’s coaching staff held Bogdanović accountable on defense and brought his coverage up to their standards. The fact that Bogdanović can run a pick-and-roll gives him added appeal as a secondary creator, perfect for when another star is crowded or doubled. The same qualities that enabled Bogdanović to stretch his role for the Pacers give his game some elasticity across the board.

[Crunch 99]

#29 Donovan Mitchell

Donovan Mitchell’s hesitation move is a masterclass in persuasion. At the front of the defender’s mind is the knowledge that Mitchell, one of the NBA’s premier drivers, wants nothing more than to get to the basket. Yet the way Mitchell tucks behind a screen and rears back his dribble is an appeal to something more impulsive: a flicker of doubt that, if not dismissed, can take over a defender’s entire body. Veteran players who know better have been caught lunging at a shot that never came, overcommitting to one of the more erratic aspects of Mitchell’s game. To be honest, his jumper comes and goes. What makes him such a dynamic scorer, regardless, is the speed with which he punishes a defender’s mistakes. Even a slight lean in the wrong direction can strand Mitchell’s opponent before his move is ever made.

You can slow Mitchell down, but it takes a village: the right perimeter defenders, the right rim protectors, and the right peripheral coverage to make him feel like the walls are closing in. Tactical advancement is Mitchell’s next frontier. What happens when he learns to better pick his spots? How will defenses reckon with Mitchell once he’s better able to pass his way out of trouble? With Mitchell entering his third NBA season and likely learning from a third straight playoff run, we could get our answers sooner rather than later.

[Crunch 99]

#26 Mike Conley

You’d be forgiven if you didn’t catch much of the 33-49 Grizzlies last season, so long as you don’t let what was out of sight fall out of mind. Mike Conley is far too good for that—an All-NBA-worthy guard who actually dragged Memphis to a slight winning margin during his time on the floor last season. Necessity drove Conley to his highest scoring season to date. Under ideal circumstances, he would orchestrate a more balanced attack. Utah should give him that opportunity, and with it his first real shot at contention in a half-decade or so. It also, curiously enough, might be the first time that Conley goes to work with any real, consistent spacing. The breathing room should serve him well. Conley runs a tight ship as it is, keeping his team’s offense in rhythm and their turnovers way, way down. Leaning on Conley is a low-risk enterprise. Good offense can be as easy as letting him run dribble hand-offs or high pick-and-rolls, both of which he reads with impressive fluency. Some guards know how to work a situation to their benefit. Conley knows how to run a team, from the nuts and bolts to its beating heart.

[Crunch 99]

#14 Rudy Gobert

For a second straight season, the Rockets punked the Jazz in a playoff series and buried Rudy Gobert in the process. There’s no way around it. But there is some room for nuance; the relationship between more traditional centers and their small-ball opponents tends to be discussed broadly, when every team and player involved has their own unique basketball character. Houston is a uniquely challenging opponent, oriented around one of the most anomalous creators in NBA history. And Gobert isn’t some run-of-the-mill plodder, but a back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year caught at a particular stylistic disadvantage. Just because the Rockets were able to neutralize Gobert does not mean other teams could. There are levels to this—and to the efforts of any player to make their impact on a series.

It takes more than a little space to string out the game’s best rim protector. Even in the rare instances where Gobert switched out to a perimeter player last season, he largely held his own. Opposing guards would turn to exaggerated step-backs to loft the ball over his 9’7’’ reach. Some resorted to tough angles that never had much chance. Even if you beat Gobert with some initial move, it’s hard to fire up a shot freely when a giant is set to float back into frame at any moment. Getting the best of him really requires a singular talent. Russell Westbrook couldn’t manage it when the Jazz ended the Thunder’s season in 2018. Countless others have tried and failed in the regular season. There will always be pressure on Gobert to adapt to the needs of a series, but no big this smart and this competitive goes quietly.

[Crunch 99]

The Real GM poll had Gobert ranked #13, DM #26 and Conley #27; these SI rankings for our top three players are nearly the same.

Ex Jazzmen: #79 Rubio, #59 Hayward, #55 Favors, #43 Millsap

The SI rankings occurred before Rubio played his way to a World Cup MVP, which might bump him up a bit if SI were to do the ranking today. Millsap will be 35 in February and is still playing quite well. Lamarcus Aldridge is another old big man still playing well. SI has him ranked #16. Aldridge received no respect in the Real GM poll, not making the top 30 and getting very few votes.

https://www.si.com/nba/top-100-nba-players-2020#30-21

[Catchall]

The thing with Royce is... you want to be the team to find a player like him, I'm not sure I want to be the team to pay him the big bucks. If this was the price I'd probably do it, but I'm wary of it becoming a Jonathon Simmons type of situation where he becomes unplayable and you have to keep paying him a nice salary for years to come. I guess as long as we are locked into this team(it won't hinder us from signing other FAs because we will be over the salary cap anyways) it shouldn't be a problem really.

While that's a fair point, a $5.5 mil annual salary is basically half of the MLE...... And Royce has gotten better every year...... I think it would be a sound investment......

I think Royce could get Iman Shumpert-level money if he has a solid year. That would be $9M or $10M per year. It depends on the market, I guess. Garrett Temple is earning in the $5M range. Jae Crowder is in the $7M - $8M range.

[stitches]

Less than two weeks away from camp. Dante checking in at 100%...but for how long?

I don't think I've ever wanted a Jazz player to succeed as much as I want Dante to succeed.

[KqWIN]

I don't think I've ever wanted a Jazz player to succeed as much as I want Dante to succeed.

He and AB are my favorite Jazz players ever. I'm a curse