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Paul Milsap
Posted by: Kevin on February 15th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Hello I am new to this site and this is my first post. The first point I wanted to make is about Paul Milsap. In no way am I writing this to put him down. I love his game, he is a tough guy which I like and on certain nights he is an all star. My point however is about the number of bigs on the Jazz roster and my belief on how the Jazz should handle it. A lot of people feel that Paul can be the face of the franchise. My oppinion on him for a long time has been that he is a terrific role player. He, as has been the case lately, is not consistent enough to be a go to guy. This is why I think, as tough as it is to swallow, that they should trade him now while is stock is high. Lets face it, Derek Favors has way more star potential an up side. Big Al is more of a consistant player and Kanter, at least I hope, will turn out to be a proto typical big. Would it be good to have Milsap off the bench, sure, but you cant pay him the money he will demand to come off the bench. What do you guys think.
Replies: 16
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16 Responses
Paul is a great role player and a feel-good story, but he can’t be our consistent go-to guy. There are nights when he decides to take the night off or gets frustrated and sort of gives up. It frustrates me to watch everyone give him a pass just because of his reputation as a hustler. I’m not just saying this because of the slump. When he was playing at a very high level earlier in the season, I didn’t expect that to continue for much longer. I like Sap, but oftentimes it seems like he hurts us more on defense than he helps us on offense. I don’t see him as a part of our future if we are going to be a winning team again.
If we had just one player on this team who could hit an outside shot on a regular basis, it would really help free up a guy like Millsap to do what he does. Defenses are really keying in on him right now.
I say keep Paul…and find a shooter.
Sap is still our best player and his contract is at a good price. Besides if you really want to make a point it is Millsap not Milsap. He has been on the team for how many years?? How many people have his jersey??
I agree with the post. We arent going to resign Millsap when his contract is up so why not trade him while his stock is soaring. We have already committed to Favors and Kanter so we might as well go all out. I really dont think we would be hurt that bad without Sap. Especially for what we could get in return.
To put this in there, stats are starting to add up. Yes, Hayward didn’t have a great game last game, although he played limited minutes and in those minutes he def was again respectable on Durant. Locke points out that Hayward was really the only guy to play full minutes both nights previously, and then started. He mentions that Hayward was gassed. What we’ve seen other than yesterday’s game, that in the past month, Hayward has been becoming arguably the Jazz’s best player. His overall game is consistent. I do agree with a lot of people that Favors and Kanter are getting better every game, and that they should be getting more minutes. And I have been advocating the “Y U NO PLAY BURKS?” for a while. The vets are even mentioning that this is becoming Hayward’s team. He just needs to realize it. They name him specifically.
I’m with Jason. I think that Millsap should be resigned if the price is reasonable and that his game would be much better if we had some outside shooting. He IS a role player and NOT a “go-to-guy”. He is tenacious as a rebound-er and his outside shot improves each year (it still has much room for improvement). Our biggest emphasis should be on our outside game. If we had some REAL outside shooters the front court would open up so much more. I have no problem with Millsap not starting and being a 6th man. SHOOTERS!!!
Thanks for the post Kevin. If we could get a legit three point shooter for Millsap, and maybe a draft pick or two, I’d pull the trigger. It would take a lot of pressure off AL, and if teams had to start fearing doubling him(cause of the 3 point shooter) then maybe we could get a good inside-outside game going. If you really think about, AL and Sap don’t really compliment each other defnesively. AL is slow, and Sap is short. If we start Favors or Kanter alongside AL then his devensive deficiencies on defense wouldn’t be so apparent. I still love Millsap though. It’d be hard to see him go…
Defensive deficiencies on defense. Oops.
You might be new to this site but your right on buddy:) Millsap is a good roll player and a feel good story but he is holding too much talent back behind him. I know he’s a fan favorite and most people would love to keep him, bring back Wes Matthews, and trade for the Jimmer but we can’t win games with the “all good guy” team. Once Favors gets in his groove and is giving us 20 and 10 every night Millsap will be an afterthought. He is a great player and did an amazing job backing up Boozer but he can’t shoulder taking the whole team on his back especially when its a full season. We should make the trade with Boston. It gives us the minutes for our #3 overall pick Favors to take over and it let’s Paul have a shot a playing for a team that could really use him right now
I was going to post this same thing good post completely agree I love Paul but he is a role player
Lk, first of all, I’m not claiming to be a pro speller and I really don’t think it matters on this site were we don’t get paid. Now to your point, how do you explain the fact that he doesn’t give it to you every night. Also, watch at the end of the games he wants no part of the shots. Like I said, good role player not go to guy and his current contract won’t last forever.
You guys have all made good points. Dj thanks for the point on defense it is one I was going to make but forgot. Millsap and big al just don’t work. I wish corben would play al more with favors and Paul with kanter rather than the 2 youngsters together all the time I think it would get more out of all of them. Steve, thanks for the compliment, you are right, jersey sales don’t win games.
Difficult one, but for me his contract is winding down and his value is currently very high. We’re desperate for a PG and are stacked with lots of good 4 and 5s. For the sake of the team, we need to trade to find more balance. We do have a $10.9m trade exception too to help address our needs at PG and to some extent SG (Burks?).
Good post kevin, if anybody saw lockes statistical lineup report for our big men, it shows big al and milsap at 66% on rebounding compared to other variations of sap,al,favors,kanter. Which I believe all other combinations of bigs is in the 80 & 90% defensive rebounding and other stats higher. This just proves what we think about when watching the games is that we can do well without al and sap together. And possibly well without milsap. Corbin is experimenting again with rotations. Enes I believe is becoming a real problem for other teams and ty mentioned him learning offensive setups better. Favors and Kanter playing together right now is chemistry building for our future much like the chemistry thunder has now was done by playing together alot and young . I was hoping millsap would be used as a #3 occassionaly hitting corner threes and dominating teams in rebounding. Im disapointed it hasnt been tried against some teams. I also believe jeremy evans could gaurd a #3 SF. Since that scenerio isnt getting used then millsap is very tradable and should be traded right now if we want to be serious about our future. Big al is our most consistan
t player but another reason to keep him is his lowpost footwork and moves are top if not the best in the nba and that helps the young post players.
LK’s just a grumpy old man, Kevin so don’t worry about what he says.
LK how long was D-will on the team? How many people had his jersey? I bet just as many if not more. Sometimes you have to make tough trades for the better of the team.