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John Hollinger on the Jazz/Suns; Golden State tanking “abomination”
Posted by: David J. Smith on April 24th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.Some bits and pieces from ESPN’s John Hollinger’s article (Insider), where he discusses the immense Utah Jazz/Phoenix Suns tilt tonight.
Welcome to the first game of the playoffs: Phoenix at Utah.
The Suns and Jazz play Tuesday, and the winner will almost certainly be the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Utah has a slight chance with a loss, actually, but would need Phoenix to lose at home to San Antonio’s backups on Wednesday while the Jazz beat Portland on Thursday. If the Jazz win, they clinch.
Alas, Phoenix has a much bigger problem on Tuesday in Utah. The Suns will likely be withoutGrant Hill and Channing Frye, while Utah has the opposite situation: Their injuries have actually helped them. The Jazz spent half the season sabotaging themselves by giving heavy minutes to veteran deadwood like Raja Bell and Josh Howard before injuries to both cleared the way for Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks and C.J. Miles to play the wings.
Phoenix’s one shot is zone defense. According to Synergy, Utah ranks 29th in points per play against zones, and the Suns have been a fairly common user of zone defenses this season. The Suns have also beaten the Jazz twice this season already, so a win wouldn’t be unprecedented. Nonetheless, the odds are against them.
As for the Spurs, they can “play God” on Wednesday if the Suns win Tuesday, as they could probably beat Phoenix by playing their starters. I suspect San Antonio would prefer Phoenix to Utah; the Spurs don’t deal as well with brutish frontcourts and hardly ever play zone. So look for heavy doses of James Anderson and Cory Joseph in Phoenix on Wednesday.
Also, he talks about the possibility of the Jazz moving up to 7th spot:
As with New York, the Nuggets can land sixth, seventh or eighth. Denver will be No. 8 if it drops its final two games (at Oklahoma City and at Minnesota) while Utah wins its final two. However, I imagine Utah will opt for rest if it beats Phoenix and might lose the finale to Portland, although the Blazers’ current disinterest may trump any tanking by an opponent.
And one of my favorite parts, Hollinger discusses the Golden State Warriors’ pick and takes tanking teams to task. This is brilliant. (I know many of you dislike former Jazz guard/John Stockton backstabber and current Warriors coach Mark Jackson. Enjoy.)
The draft pick race
Several teams that are out of the money nonetheless have draft picks at stake in these final games. Most notable among them is Golden State, which owes Utah a first-round pick unless it lands in the top seven. The Warriors are currently No. 8 from the bottom in the win column, but will end up in a tie for No. 7 because somebody has to win the Toronto-New Jersey game on Thursday. If the lottery goes to form, that means the status of the Warriors’ pick will come down to a random draw at the league office, which I believe would be held on Friday.
However, the Warriors can’t screw up and beat the Hornets on Tuesday night or they’ll take themselves out of the running entirely (unless they move up in the lottery). A couple of other unlikely scenarios could help Golden State: The Kings or Cavs could win their final two games and tie the Warriors in the loss column, improving their random-draw odds of landing in the top seven.
While we’re at it, here’s a memo to the league: Stop including conditional protections on draft choices like this. What the Warriors have done this past month is an abomination and needs to be stopped. The only protection that should be allowed are outside the top 14 or inside the top three. We’ve seen too many teams make a mockery of the game in the final month of the season because they were trying to keep their draft pick (most notably in the infamous Mark Madsen 3-pointer game a few years back), and it’s one of the big reasons that so many of the games in March and April stink.
Golden State’s is the most prominent, but it’s not the only pick that is affected by the playoff race. The Knicks have made the playoffs and the Rockets have missed, so Houston will have two first-round picks (their own and New York’s), and the Nets won’t get the Rockets’ top-14 protected first-rounder until next year at the earliest.
It’s unlikely, but Houston could get a third first-round pick if Dallas wins its finale against Atlanta, Boston drops its final two games, and Denver and Orlando lose at least once. A random draw could put Dallas’ pick 21st, and it’s top-20 protected.
Minnesota will be rooting hard for Utah on Tuesday, as the Wolves get the Jazz’s first-round pick if Utah makes the playoffs; otherwise it’s top-12 protected next year.
Replies: 14
Views: 2342
14 Responses
Hmm. He makes it sound like CJ > Howard & Raja. Not so sure about that.
Definitely spot on about the tanking. Good idea to eliminate all but top-14 and top-3 protections on traded draft picks.
Question for ya David. I’ve seen on Twitter where you and Diana mock Mark Jackson endlessly (and I thoroughly enjoy it) but I was curious as to how he backstabbed John Stockton because if he deserves to be hated by Jazz fans, I need to know so that I can be in on this. No one should avoid the wrath of Jazz fans if they deserve it. Thanks in advance!
Thanks for the comments, KC and Kevin. Kevin–to answer your question, according to a national report, tried to sway some teammates in his quest to start over John Stockton. The report said the politics helped sway John toward retirement. I asked him about it on Twitter and he promptly blocked me.
Here are a few links:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1028560/1/index.htm
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/ian_thomsen/02/11/sloan.resignation/index.html
http://jazzfanatical.wordpress.com/utah-jazz-blogs/why-we-hate-mark-jackson/
Hope that helps Kevin!
The injuries did help us by discovering our big lineup, but Howard is so much better than CJ in so many ways. I am worried that when Howard and Raja return that Corbin is going to go back to his old starting lineup and go back to playing Favors 18 minutes a night while Big Al gets worked over in the pick and roll. Corbin really has sabotaged this team a lot this season with how he has managed the lineups and rotation, but as long as he getrs it right tonight and in the playoffs than that’s all that matters.
“The Jazz spent half the season sabotaging themselves by giving heavy minutes to veteran deadwood like Raja Bell and Josh Howard before injuries to both cleared the way for Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks and C.J. Miles to play the wings.”
This is soooo true. It’s too bad that Tye feels compelled to stick with inefficient players and is forced into change.
The BIG lineup is so much more efficient, yet he refuses to change the starting lineup.
Jazzaholic
Sorry about the “Tye”, but Ty should make proactive lineup changes, not be forced by injuries, to play more productive players.
Jazzaholic
Corbin rode players way too long that weren’t playing well, and went with players too soon after coming back from minor injuries (Raja, Howard, Watson), often replacing a player that had stepped in and played very well (Alec, Tinsley). I’ll give him that their play DID improve eventually, but what about all the games where those players didn’t play very well?
Also, CJ got WAY too many minutes. He should have been getting 5-10 a night max.
I love how he see the real reason we are close to the playoffs cause we had injuries and forced us to play our best players..
HAHAHAHA
All the games Bell and CJ played with no production. Watson came back too soon after his ankel injury cried and pouted while Tinsley was being very good.Seems to me he had the Vets disease.. Sloans rule of not losing your starting position because of a injury should be banned. Use whoever is doing the best job and let it go at that..
It’s pretty evident that Hollinger’s familiarity with the Jazz wings only includes January and February. Before their injuries, Bell and Howard were playing some of the best basketball of their careers.
In addition, he clearly didn’t watch any of Josh Howard’s playing.
He checked out our team stats and saw that CJ Miles was our #3 scoring option for a while (9 ppg in like 35 minutes on 30% shooting) and so just assumed that was better than how Raja Bell the entirety of last season.
Maybe Hollinger saw the game where CJ lit up the Lakers from 3 (that was very much a one time thing. Never happen again).
But yes, the injuries to Raja Bell and CJ Miles are quite possibly the best thing to happen to the Jazz this entire season.
[...] John Hollinger on the Jazz/Suns; Golden State … – Utah Jazz 360 Some bits and pieces from ESPN's John Hollinger's article (Insider), where he discusses the immense Utah Jazz/Phoenix Suns tilt tonight. Welcome to the first game of the playoffs: Phoenix at Utah. The Suns and Jazz play … http://www.utahjazz360.com/davidjsmith/john-hollinger-on-the-jazzsuns-golden-state-tanking-abominati... [...]
While we are stuck with Raja for one more year, IIRC, I sincerely hope that CJ gets a good contract next year. With any team but the Jazz.
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