http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17604715/nba-power-rankings-training-camp-edition More Utah nonsense. Can't wait to smack em around in game 1.
At this point I expect to see the Jazz over rated when I look at things like this. I was surprised that they had the Grizz this high as well.
Yeah, the UTA dick riding has reached Jenna Jameson levels in the national media. If it gets any worse, ESPN and CBS Sports should just start posting their preseason prediction videos to Pornhub. When I read shit like this: "the Jazz ranked third in defensive efficiency after the All-Star break", my immediate reaction is, big fucking deal, what good did it do them? First, "after the All-Star break" is a sample size of 30 games. Second, UTA went 2 games under .500 in those 30 games, which was actually a worse won/loss record than the .500 ball they played before the All-Star break. And, as I mentioned in another thread, their defense wasn't as elite as the experts want us to believe. They ranked a barely above league average 13th in OPP FG%. They were better inside the arc (10th in 2FG%) but worse than average (18th in 3FG%) defending the 3-pointer. That's not elite. Quin Snyder is Nate McMillian 2.0. His team looks better than they are defensively because they play at the slowest pace in the entire league. And offensively they flat out sucked last year, and we're supposed to believe adding Joe Johnson, Boris Diaw and George Hill are going to take them from the lottery to HCA in the West? They still lack a go to scorer. Joe Jonson is the only player on their roster to ever average > 20 ppg, and the last time he did it was seven seasons ago. Bringing in Iso Joe to shore up their offense seems to be a further homage to Nate McMillan and his all iso all the time offense to go with their McMillanesque dead last pace. And, here's the problem, when they do play Johnson and Diaw, that supposedly great defense takes a major hit. Johnson had a significant uptick in his scoring and shooting percentages in the 24 games he played in MIA after being waived by BRK. But here's the catch: even playing the best ball he's played in over four years during that 24 game sample size, he was still outscored by the guy he was guarding. According to 82 games.com, Johnson scored 19.4 ponts/48, but gave up 21.7 points/48 for a net of -2.3 points/48 in MIA. He was even worse in BRK, where in a much larger 57 game sample size, he was outscored by 3.8 points/48 while playing SG and by 3.1 points/48 while playing SF. Boris Diaw is another player that, in spite of playing on a 67-win team that played great team defense, was outscored by the guy he was guarding. Well, you can always say, that's OK, because Diaw is more of a facilitator than a primary scorer. That's cool when you're playing for the Spurs with Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcu Aldridge, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. In UTA, he'll be surrounded by offensively challenged players. So, exactly who is he supposed to facilitate? And, that's the problem I see in UTA - a lack of 2-way players. Gordon Hayward was previously their best offensive player (and probably still is), but their worst defensive starter. If they play Hayward, Johnson and/or Diaw together, it will improve their offense significantly, but hurt their defense even more than it helps their offense. Their new roster, which everyone seems to be praising, is built like a football team, with separate offensive and defensive units. Of course they can mix and match players among those units to get a little of both, but every lineup that improves their atrocious offense hurts their overrated defense. Will they be better than the 40-42 lottery team they were last year? It's very likely they will be, but I just don't see how a team with such a flawed roster challenges for HCA in the West. BNM
Sounds like they are assuming all of Marc Gasol, Zach Randolf, Chandler Parsons and Mike Conley will be healthy. On March 4, they were 37-24 and five games ahead of us in the standings before injuries did them in. So, they could still be very good if healthy. The problem is Z-Bo and Gasol aren't getting any younger and Parsons and Conley are becoming injury prone. BNM
Good points, as usual, BNM. The NBA is a name game when it comes to these pre-season beauty pageants. Even though they're way past their primes, Johnson and Diaw are names that are recognized for what they once were, not what they can bring to the Jazz now. The Blazers, OTOH, have a roster full of young guys who haven't yet made a name for themselves. The writers sit back and scratch their heads about why the Blazers are overpaying a bunch of no-names. I'll be surprised if by the All-Star break the Jazz are within 5 games of the Blazers and their no-name roster.
The most boring, slowest playing team in the league are now the media darlings. I suspect there is some subconscious collusion at play. Once a few experts pick the Jazz as the next big thing, everyone else piles on. It's the safe approach, the journalistic equivalent of the prevent defense. If you're right, you can say, "see, I told you they were going to be good". If you're wrong, you can say, "they failed to live up to expectations, everybody else thought they were going to be good, too." It's the low risk, cover your ass, approach to journalism. There is strength in numbers - even when you're wrong. Make that, especially when you're wrong. How many years in a row did we hear NOP was going to break out and be the next big thing and Anthony Davis was going to be the next transcendent player and perennial MVP candidate? Last year, MIL was supposed to have a breakout season and we were supposed to be battling the Lakers for the worst record in the Western Conference. At least they got that last part half right. This time three years ago, no one was predicting anything more than about 50 wins for the Warriors. They went on to win 140 games in two seasons. Take heart in the knowledge when you read these predictions they are about 50% accurate. Some things are obvious. Any Eastern Conference team that has LeBron James is pretty much a lock to make the finals and the Warriors with the the addition of Durant and SAS losing Duncan are going to easily be the class of the West. Everything else is a crap shoot and the average fan in this forum can probably do just as well as the national media experts in these preseason predictions. Actually, most of us could probably do better. We don't have the agenda of manufacturing controversy to help generate more page views and ad revenue. BNM
@Boob-No-More With how on top of the numbers you are, I'm surprised you missed this one: With the addition of George Hill, Utah has the worst backcourt in terms of creating shots for others in the entire league. Hill averaged only 3.7 assists per 36. That's awful for a PG Hood averaged only 3 assists per 36. Thats pretty bad too. Their backcourt only averages 6.7 assists per 36 COMBINED. Paired with the rest of that lineup, I don't think Hill is an upgrade over Mack (6.4 assists per 36). Even Raul Neto averaged 6.1 assists per 36. I don't believe Hill is a good fit in that lineup because it puts ALL the offensive creation responsibilities on Hayward. Now, that backcourt may work with Lebron James, but Hayward isn't even an all-star level player, and to rely upon him as the ONLY outlet for shot creation is an awful formula. Once a team shuts down Hayward (Aminu, Harkless, and Turner could do the job IMO), they pretty much such down the entire offense. If the guards can't create shit, then I don't see how they challenge for HCA relying on Hayward to do everything. One other thing analysts point to is that their record should have been better given their +1.8 point differential. However, their record was worse than their point differential would show because they lost almost all of their close games. Analysts think that this will fix itself next year, however the problem isn't bad luck or coincidence. They end up losing a lot of close games due to their lack of a go-to-scorer. They don't have someone that can get them buckets down the stretch and close out games. This causes them to falter at the end of close games. This causes a point differential that makes their team look better than their ability to ACTUALLY win games.
I'm not worried about a guy that shot under 35% from the field and 31% from 3 his rookie year, then tore his ACL.
I remember Utah's defense giving us fits the past couple years. We're still much better than them though, these pundits are smoking crack.
Define giving us fits. Does that mean actually beating us, or just holding us below our seasonal scoring average because they play at the slowest pace in the league? Last year, we were 3-1 against the Jazz. We averaged 104.5 ppg against them. They averaged 99.25 ppg against us. Was our defense giving them fits? Not really, they just suck on offense. Two years ago, you can make a stronger case for them. At least they were a respectable 2-2 against us, but their second win was late in the season right before the playoffs when both Wes and Afflalo were injured and Aldridge also sat out since were were locked into playing MEM in the playoffs without HCA. Three years ago we swept them 4-0 and outscored them by an average of 112 to 96.25. They didn't hold us below 100 points once that season, and also didn't break 100 points against us a single time that year. Even if you throw out that season, we are 5-3 against them over the past two years and have held them below 100 points just as many times as they've held us below 100 points. I've said it several times, their defense is highly overrated because they play at the slowest pace in the league. Even after all these off season acquisitions, they still, don't have a go to scorer who can create for himself, or is teammates, with the game on the line. Because of their McMillan like pace, they will continue to play a lot of close games. Without a go to scorer, they will continue to lose a lot of those close games. They should be better than the 40-42 lottery team they were last year, but I just don't see them being the third or 4th best team in the West, which is where most of these "experts" are putting them. BNM
They say we didn't get much better for the money we've spent but I think we brought 3 excellent free players (Turner, Ezeli and yes, Napier) and kept our most important free agents. Most of our improvement should come from players like Harkless, Crabbe, Leonard gaining more confidence, experience. The big contracts make our players no longer in contract seasons, so they supposedly could be less eager to prove themselves but this financial security should help us in having players more accepting of less playing time which helps with our biggest issue: we're a bit too deep. We have too many inside players deserving of minutes, several smaller players better suited to playing the 4 and not enough behind Lillard and McCollum in the back court. So, there are still some necessary tweaks to be made but also plenty of reason for optimism
You know, it's funny that UTA gets massive props from the media for being 3rd in the league in defensive efficiency after the All Star break - a sample size of 30 games that saw them go 14-16 and miss the playoffs. Yet, we don't seem to get any credit for playing at a 53-win pace after Christmas - a 51 game sample size with a 33-18 record. We played far better for far longer, and are actually younger than them, yet they are the team on the rise and apparently we have peaked and are going to backslide from 5th in the West to 9th. Evidently, all our guys in their early to mid-20s are already over the hill, but they bring in 100-year old Iso Joe, Boris Diaw and George Hill and they are poised for a break out season. BNM
