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5 Things that could go wrong!
Posted by: Dallan Forsyth on September 17th, 2012
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.1) Bad Chemistry- Without knowing what Kevin Murphy contract or the Raja Bell situation is we currently have 15 players under contract. Of the other 13 players besides these two 8 players are coming into a contract year. The “Core Four” are playing for their roles and playing time in the league. Hayward,Favors,and Burks have all expressed their frustration with either their roles or their playing time. We all expect Favors to get an increased role this year and he should. But what about Burks and Kanter? Are they going to get any more minutes then what they got last year? How are the Veterans going to handle in a contract year losing time to the youth? How are the youth going to handle being better then the vets and not getting time? These are questions that are going to have to get answered and are probably going to cause some problems.
2) A poor start- 15 of the first 20 games we have are against good teams or teams we struggled with last year. 12 of the first 20 are on the road. How are we going to handle this start? Hopefully it starts out good because if not their could be some finger pointing. This would not help the above mentioned chemistry that could all ready cause problems. Do we have the resilience to come back from a poor start to a season? Or would we crumble and say we are not good enough like in the playoffs?
3)P&R defense- This was a HUGE problem last year but did not come to full effect until about the last ten games or so. With the league becoming a P&R league how are we going to handle that? We know who the biggest problem is so how are we going to combat that? With 27 of the teams being able to run some sort of very effective P&R we better be ready for it after we received the beating of our lives in the play offs. You do not think everyone saw that and knows EXACTLY how to attack us? They do and they will continue to do it until we can stop it. People were all ready getting frustrated with each other at the end of the year because of how it was being played.
4)The Coaches- They have got to be more creative on offense. This Post Iso ball has got to stop. It helps one person and one person only. If we do not find a way to better utilize our players on offense it will go right back to number 1 problem. I read an article in the Deseret News after we got eliminated from the playoffs about people upset about the offense and how it needed to be more team oriented. So if that means playing a certain player less so that others can be involved that is going to be key. The coaches have also got to get better at communication. With all of these players being up for contract their is going to have to be roles defined. If this does not happen go back to number 1
5)An injury to Favors or Hayward- I think we have the depth to handle injuries in certain places. I think honestly an injury could be the best thing at certain positions so that people can play. But two people that CAN NOT get injured are Hayward and Favors. Hayward is our best wing player and defends the best player on the other team pretty much every night. Favors is and will have to play more minutes this year if we expect to do anything worth while. If he was to get injured that would be bad news! We could recover from anyone else getting injured but I do not think so on these two.
Replies: 5
Views: 718
5 Responses
Yep I can see all of those things realistically happening. Especially the offense. We cannot just dump it into Al this year.
I will try not to judge the Jazz by how they start with so many road games to start the season but it will be hard not to.
I think Hayward and Favors will be fine, they are young and durable
Glad to see the Ladies reply again.
I think the season will boil down to 2 things: either this season is a transition season or this season will be a throw-away season. Either several players are going to get the bulk of time and play for their next contract with most players leaving the Jazz (Al, Bell, Watson, Tinsley, Millsap, Mo, Foye), OR the players that are the future roster of the Jazz will get the bulk of the minutes and develop getting closer to a championship team (Favors, Hayward, Burks, Kanter, Evans, Marvin, Murphy, Carroll). We will know when the starting line up vs. Mavs takes the court; by then well know if a major trade will happen.
That 1st game against Mavs is already frustrating me: Dirk parks at the 3 point line (ala Bonner), P&R with Kaman and Mayo/Collision (both players that had season high games against Jazz last year), and layup or kick to wide open Dirk cuz Favors had to rotate to the paint. And D. West acts like a clown as Mavs win by 15. If Al gaurds Dirk, Dirk blows by Al and scores or gets fouled.
I agree with the starting from behind problem. Interesting that we usually finish games with our best defensive players but dont start with them. lets stop playing catch up ball.
-If were trailin, were failin
Hate to always be this guy but I see at least three possibly four of these hazard areas being avoided by one simple move. I bet you can all guess what I’m about to say. Trade Big Al. Team chemistry goes up, P&R defense goes up for sure, bad starts would go down because we would actually be starting some defense on the floor, and coaching improves (simply because they would not have the option of not starting Favors).
I wish the front office would show some faith in Kanter and Favors and trade him away. For all we know they are trying and just haven’t found any right moves. They don’t just want to throw a valuable piece away, I understand that, but he is stunting very important growth. This would be an addition by subtraction.