Capn'O wrote:NoDopeOnSundays wrote:Capn'O wrote:
You're really reaching on narrative here. Let's take Gobert. Terrible series. Liability on the court in the playoffs. Jazz would be better without him. Right?
Orrrr you could look at what actually happened, the guy averaged 17/11.5 and was a +26 over the course of the series going up against Jokic. He's not the reason the Jazz lost. If he were a better offensive player would they have won? Probably. But he brought substantial value to the Jazz. Replacing him with a different player, let's say Khris Middleton or Paul George, between the top 15-20 players in the league MIGHT get them past the Nuggets but does not get the Jazz past the Lakers regardless of position. A game here or there where he was successfully gameplanned for does not define his career or even series. If the Jazz were to put Gobert on the market right now the return would be MUCH bigger than the difference between the 8th and 2nd pick in this **** draft.
Now, how does this relate to Mitch? Well... when Gobert was Mitch's age? He could barely get on the court. It wasn't until the next year that he did anything. And when he did, he still produced less than Mitch.
That kind of asset should, at the very least, be held until the Knicks can leverage it for a top player in the league. Not dismissed now because he can't be a top-2 player on a champion. What even is that?
He's there for defense, he gave up 26ppg to the guy he was guarding and the Nuggets had a 120 ORTG. He is the 2nd highest paid player on the Jazz, with that contract comes more blame and excuses for his failures fail on deaf ears. Just for reference, Steven Adams is also the 2nd highest paid player on the Jazz, and Hassan Whiteside was the highest paid player on the Heat at one point. Back to Gobert, the Jazz would have been better off with a mid level center, because they wouldn't have made the trade for Conley, maybe they go in a different direction and sign Brogdon, then make a trade for a wing after that, the point is that Gobert's salary hurts their flexibility and his impact isn't big enough to justify it, especially not when he can't impact the game defensively. They are hamstrung with a player who makes superstar money, but doesn't have superstar impact. And this isn't just 1 failure, he's been exposed in the playoffs before, this was sadly his best playoff series
Gobert is up for a supermax, there's almost no chance the Jazz will sign him to it, if you think there's going to be a big market for him as he approaches FA you're going to be wrong.
I don't understand the argument of bringing up ages here, Andre Drummond at 19 was a more productive player than Mitch & Gobert were at 21. We know how Drummond turned out, and why is there this assumption that the floor for Mitch is Gobert, what if he's more like Capela and Adams? Overvaluing Mitch is the point, you think he's a huge asset but the market has already shown what centers like Mitch are worth when they're on their 2nd contract. Mitch is at his most valuable before he signs an extension.
A mid-level center? So, to be clear, the Jazz could have beaten the Lakers with:
Brogdan
Dmitch
Middleton (Good luck outbidding the Bucks and getting him to Utah)
Jingles
Take your pick between Olynyk (He makes more than the mid-level), Meyers Leonard (ditto), Richaun Holmes (best value here - go with Holmes)
???
Or if they still lost in the first round would that be an indictment on shooting wings?
I'm not buying what you're selling here. The Jazz don't advance past the 2nd round because they don't have the top flight talent, period. They played about even with the Nuggets and OUTSCORED the Nuggets in total and in 4 of the 7 games with Gobert on the floor.
So you're mad at Gobert (and Mitch) because he's not as good as Anthony Davis. Fine. Show me a trade that gets the Knicks an Anthony Davis level player and leaves us with assets to put together a competing team. Is Lamelo Ball a player that good? Is Anthony Edwards? And if you don't know by now you're just shuffling deck chairs because you like the position better. Cause guess what? If they're as good as Middleton you're gonna have to pay them too. I don't see an Anthony Davis in this draft and I'm not messing around with a bird in hand to get some bullsht.
Why are you skipping all the way to beating the Lakers? The Jazz didn't beat the Nuggets. They lost, whether they played even or not they still lost and Gobert couldn't contain Jokic despite his entire purpose on the court being defense. That is the point here, rim runners are essentially just specialists.
You're stuck on AD for some reason, I haven't really said much about him in this thread. My thread is about rim runners as a whole, I used Gobert as an example in the OP because of how much money he made. But, there's history here of rim runners failing that goes beyond just him. Dwight Howard used to get neutralized by Kendrick Perkins
DeAndre Jordan who is the quintessential rim roller hurt his teams spacing in the playoffs, despite playing with CP3, JJ and Blake those teams couldn't get it done and were always had to go cheap on small forwards because they had a rim roller as part of their court. They should have let DeAndre go when the Mavs wanted him, they should have gone after someone much cheaper to do 70% of what DeAndre did.
If Wiseman is there, we should draft him and trade Mitch. I'm not high on LaMelo or Edwards, but I do see Wiseman as a clear upgrade from a skill standpoint and has the potential to be a two way player, Mitch is only going to be a 1 way player, and like previous rim runners the defense will never make up for the offense, especially when that next contract comes.
