Meet
Out of Playoffs?
Posted by: KCJones on January 2nd, 2013
The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of the Utah Jazz.So I was perusing the ESPN website as I am wont to do, trying to find any scrap of Jazz-related news I could. All I could find was an article on Rubio not traveling with Minnesota tonight to face the Jazz. How sad, he’s an exciting passer to watch. Anyway, I headed on over to John Hollinger’s Playoff Predictalator page and I’d like to share some interesting things. It’s here if you want to take a look yourself.
First off a quick look at our team. We’re two games under .500 at 15-17 after two months. We’ve had a fairly rough schedule, with two four-game road trips and two three-game road trips, but only one three-game stretch at home. Nineteen road games to just thirteen home games. We’re currently at 11th place in the west, and Paul Millsap is looking like he tore all his MCLs and ACLs this offseason and didn’t tell anyone or get treatment and he’s wishing he had signed that extension the Jazz offered. Meanwhile, our one position where there was a huge drop from starter to backup (PG), is our one position where we’ve suffered a major injury in Mo Williams’ thumb. There’s no official word, but people estimate he’ll be out until after the all-star break or longer. We HAVE seen flashes of defense from Al Jefferson and a new-found attempt to take the ball to the hole, which is exciting to me. It doesn’t make him great at defense, or drawing the foul, because he’s not, but the effort and attempt isn’t un-noticed by me! Defenses have honed in on Randy Foye, and his spectacular shooting start has dropped off too. He’s a defensive liability against good SGs (who happen to be a lot taller than Foye), and teams are staying close to him on the perimeter, which makes him basically worthless except that it draws his guy out further from the paint. Things are trending downward for our team.
Playoff hopes are not looking great. I titled this post ‘Out of the Playoffs?’ for a reason. We lost our PG and are relying on Tinsley and ‘pick-up-my-dribble’ Watson, Paul Millsap is MIA and showing hints of dissension, and we’re 11th in the West. So what is our chance of a playoff appearance? According to Hollinger’s formulas, we have a whopping 22% chance of making the playoffs. He also shows a clear-cut separation between four groups of teams. Here’s the tiers:
Top Tier (~60 wins):
San Antonio Spurs
LA Clippers
Oklahoma City Thunder
Second Tier (~50 wins):
Memphis Grizzlies
Denver Nuggets
Houston Rockets
Golden State Warriors
Third Tier (~40 wins):
Minnesota Timberwolves
Los Angeles Lakers
Portland Trailblazers
Utah Jazz
Fourth Tier (~30 wins):
Sacramento Kings
Phoenix Suns
Dallas Mavericks
New Orleans Pelicans
Look how close we are to the bottom of the West. In the top two tiers there are seven teams. Jazz are in the third tier, and ranked at the bottom of that tier as it is. Only one of those teams will make the playoffs IN THE EIGHTH SEED. If this is how the season ends, I’m going to be extremely disappointed. I’m going to be doubly disappointed if the Jazz don’t make any trades, Ty keeps rolling out the vets, and we end up with a team of under-developed young guys who don’t want to be here because they’re obviously not getting playing time when they should, and a bunch of guys on expiring contracts who don’t want to be here and will only stay if we offer more money than another team.
We’re currently projected to win 39 games this year. Now, that might go up as we now will have 6 more home games than road games over the rest of the season, but we have to beat out Minnesota, Lakers and Trailblazers just to get the EIGHTH seed. Anything less than a 5th seed and your playoff chances are basically dead. And while it’s fun to be in the playoffs, because Jazz teams in the past have had legitimate possibilities of going far, its not so fun to get embarrassed and swept out in the first round.
I’m not as excited about the Jazz’ future as I was last year. This team needs a trade, a coaching change, a philosophy change. I can endure some losses, Jazz FO, if I’m seeing effort and development from young players. What I can’t endure is watching veterans on one-year deals steal development time from our future who watches from the bench, all to get a 8th or 7th seed in the playoffs. Losing’s not so bad if you have some promising players in the pipeline! Get the ping pong balls to bounce your way at that point, and you become a future powerhouse! Imagine if we had gone young, let the young guys take the reins last year, traded vets for future draft picks, and had gotten Damian Lillard, or Harrison Barnes, or even won the lottery and gotten Anthony Davis. I’m not saying I don’t like Kevin Murphy, but if I had my choice of getting one of those three rookies I mentioned versus watching our vets scrape into an eighth seed…well the choice is easy.
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30 Responses
I’m not in the front office’s head to know what they are thinking, but I tend to think that they are quite intelligent and must have a plan that with patience will reveal itself. We are in a fairly good position with expiring contracts and possible trade to do something of benefit. I’m not sure how this years draft will be. I’ve read that much star potential at the top isn’t there, but but that there is a lot of decent talent is through out the 1st round. I see that this year is going to be a difficult one. The right new acquisitions could right the coarse.
From what Im reading, Mo is going to have surgery and thats why he is visting that specialist who performed his last surgery. Its looking like March if we are lucky. And for some reason Corbin MUST have a player with the title “PG” in order to play PG for him. Corbin will shove Watson down our faces just like last year (til he got hurt), so I expect 20 minutes from Watson per.
With that in mind, just from a quick of the games in January and February, there are 7 games Jazz “should” win, 7 that are toss ups, 13 Jazz are probably gonna lose. Say they split the toss ups, Jazz go 10-17 over Jan and Feb. So I say 25 – 34 when at the beginning of March, post-trade deadline. If Corbin parades the same starting line up and distribution of minutes, Jazz have NO chance of playoffs. Jazz need ti fire Corbin, trade at least Al or Millsap (hopefully both), dump Watson, cut Foyes minutes, and get a replacement PG—FA, Burks, Hayward something!!
Dont forget Dallas: once Dirk gets fully back they will compete for 8th spot. Blazers are looking strong all of a sudden. Denver has an insane number of home games.
Spurs; OKC; Clippers; Griz; Nuggets; Lakers; GSW;Blazers; Mavs; Rockets; Jazz/TWolves; Suns; Kings; NO.
@ Robert: good comments. Tough to know what the FO is looking to do since they are so tight-lipped. But I agree that they have a plan. We are all screaming for trades to happen, but its their job to make sure we don’t get screwed. I have confidence in the front office and over the next 7 months (trade deadline, end of season, draft, free agency), we will start to see what they have in mind.
TWolves; Bobcats; Wizard; NO; Kings; Kings; TWolves
Suns; Mavs; Pistons; Cavs; Bucks; Bulls: GSW
Nuggets; Hawks; Heat; Lakers; Pacers; Rockets; Portland; Portland; OKC; Clippers; Celtic; Hawks
Then in March:
Jazz have 7 home games and 9 road games.
East coast trip that includes Bulls and Knicks.
The Texas road drip: Mavs, Spurs, Rockets (and OKC right before).
Home games against Griz; Kinicks; Nets; 76ers.
It looks really, really bad. Maybe top 8 lottery pick bad. When the thought of somehow picking up Gilbert Arenas serms like a good idea to improve your PG position, thats a bad sign…..
Its looking like its gonna get worse before it gets better. Until A trade happens or miraculously Corbin is fired nothing will change. Right now Im only looking forward to the games to see young guys get any minutes. The Millsap injury makes a lot of sense though. He hasnt look the same at all. I thought it was just his attitude. Maybe its both.
Jazz’ FO is the best in the league at not showing their cards. I think that recent statement that they aren’t particularly looking for a trade was to make it seem they are going to require high value for either big man. I don’t if Tyreke Evans fits in personality wise with the Jazz, but his skill set would be an immediate upgrade at the pg position. I could see the Jazz being a 3rd man in a Boston-Kings(DMC) trade, essentially giving up Millsap for Evans.
Gordon is back for NO, they will be better as well
#FireCorbin
#BlowuptheJazz
I mean look at what the Houston Rockets have done! I am in awe of their GM. Kevin O COnnor, not so much.
Great post KC. Unfortunately, you spent more time and effort on that post than Corbin has all season at being a coach. That is why we probably are out of the playoffs until further notice. We just do not have a coach who can adjust things on the fly when they need to be changed.
What we see is what we get with this team until Corbin either decides to be a coach, or we get a real coach elsewhere. I HATE being a negative nancy, but I just haven’t seen a lick of passion or desire out of Corbin, and that translates to the players.
Here’s some ESPN Bonus Jazz tidbits:
Tom Haberstroh on the 2011 if-we-could-redraft:
“(Jazz 3rd pick) Enes Kanter. Still like this pick even though we probably won’t truly see Kanter get a shot until next season, when Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson figure to no longer be in his way. Derrick Favors and Kanter are the future in Utah. But to be quite honest, they’re probably the present, too.”
Other suggestions were Kemba Walker, Brandon Knight. Article athttp://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/5-on-5-130102/nba-2011-redraft
And Chad Ford in his chat responding to someone’s ‘Let’s try to get Cousins for Millsap and Jefferson’ scenario:
“Cousins is crazy talented and from what I can gather, he wants out of Sacramento badly. The Jazz have a ton of different assets to offer. But I can’t imagine any scenario where the Jazz would give up any of those assets for Cousins. They care a lot about both character and chemistry. They aren’t the type of team that will take the risk? Boston? For sure they would. Dallas? They would too. Just not Utah.”
I’ve always been of the opinion you can have ONE crazy guy on your team as long as you have clear bigger top dog. Rodman, Artest, Perkins, Birdman, etc. So while I would love Cousins, we don’t have that top dog to keep him in line.
KC, I want you to know that I read every word of this on my phone and agree with every word… so as I went to tap “5 stars”, I apparently missed and it only registered as 4 stars. And since I couldn’t figure out how to change it, I felt the need to write you this explanation.
#FireCorbin
Here we go with the ping pong balls again, ugh…
I think getting to the playoffs was a great experience for our young ones. You don’t jump from pretender to contender just like that. I do want the Jazz to get back in the playoffs, you never know if a star player from the other team might get injured or whatever. Remember when the Jazz eliminated the Rockets (Jazz 8th vs. Rockets 1st)
Ping pong balls for ping pong, basket balls for basketball, added growing some other kind of balls.
The Jazz were a No. 5 seed when they beat the Rockets…
Those who say they think that the FO have a plan should really be saying they assume the FO have a plan, as there is no evidence that this is true. They gave Corbin an extension with no evidence of coaching ability and continue to allow him to show his ineptitude without changing a thing. This is evidence that they have no idea. I hope you’re right, but i can’t say that I am optimistic.
I also don’t know why the Jazz picked Kanter ahead of Walker if they aren’t going to play him.
You’re right Tacorev, anyway you got my point… I will never put stupid ping pong balls before making the playoffs.
Agreed @disco! We keep waiting for this master plan to be revealed, well I hope they realize Favors and Hayward will be in final year a year from now, so…..
From his rookie year to third year, Favors has had an increase of TWO minutes?! Thats not progress.
This is kinda a must win tonight: Jazz could be in the midst of an 8 game losing streak.
Im sure Favors and Hayward’s agents will be getting ton of suitors; I wont blame them when they leave.
Look at OKC!! Offered Harden contract, said no, OKC traded him! Now they have top 5 pick and draft future C or Shabazz maybe. Meanwhile Jazz resign Al?!
Let the UJ360 draft projection posts begin!!!! Who we drafting?!
lol thanks Taco….I had a 5-star streak going and u blew it!!
@James – we’re spending the majority of our salary on aging veterans who are taking development time from our future guys and who’s ceiling at this point appears to be an eighth seed, IF even that, since so many teams around us have made a leap. That’s my point. We’re losing at rebuilding and we’re losing at winning since we’re trying to do both at once instead of just picking one. What the Jazz are doing would make sense if we were rolling towards a 5th seed or better. If we’re going to be a ping-pong ball team–or even a 6th, 7th or 8th seed–why sacrifice development of guys that are supposedly our future, play un-exciting basketball (‘entry pass to Al…dribble for 10 seconds…shoot a push shot or kick out to Watson / Tinsley for a last-ditch three brick’) and pay millions of dollars on veteran salaries that are here for one year? I’m actually not sure we would BE a ping-pong ball team, had we gone full-rebuild, gotten a young PG and future draft picks for the older guys and just let them start playing together from the get-go.
I agree with James that we should always play to win and never shoot for the lottery like the disgraceful Warriors. But I still hate Corbin.
I hadn’t seen that the NO Hornets had officially been renamed the NO Dirty Brown Pelicans, yet.
Nice blog!
I don’t think it’s ever been done in the past, but I think Greg, Kevin and Dennis need to sit down with Ty and tell him “We have your back! Development of the Core4 is MORE important than vets with expiring contracts. Play to win but develop the kids!”
Ty is like every coach, worried about winning, more than developing players. Give him some backing.
Jazzaholic
Any coach that gives a player constant minutes when said player averages more turnovers than points needs to fired. Watson averages more minutes than Kanter and Burks?! Watson has about the equal amount of FG% to minutes average–17?!!! And NO, cuz Corbin did this last year before Mo even was on the roster let alone injured.
He’s averaging 17 minutes! Who would you play there? Burks because he’s going to play point guard better than a NBA veteran even though he doesn’t have a much better shot? I just don’t understand why we should fire Corbin for playing a player if he doesn’t have any better option. Maybe help me understand..
#dontfirecorbin
See othet post….
Since Mos injury its 22 minutes per game, actually.
22 minutes; 1.0 points per game; 2.0 turnovers per game; 0/9 FG ZERO % shooting; 0/3 (ZERO 3pt %); 4 assist per; 4/6 FTs. Thats why.
@Zking our team should not be a 28th defensive team. its rediculous. there are numerous other defficiencies with Corbins coaching besides lineups which ARE horrid.
@Jazzaholic I agree that FO could have started out having Corbins back and told him to develope C4. Obviously Corbin has been given the reigns to do what he wants. If you think about it maybe giving him the extended contract was a way to give him security to take more risk with the youth and FO just want to see what is capable of on his own. thats what i would do. Look at Raja , contracts can be bought out. Im sure if they decide Corbin isnt a fit, then they will find someone else; which they should now.
Im sure KOC knows the season is a near bust for the strategy he was going for. near bust except that C4 have developed on their own with limited minutes, no help of coaching or playing time. So he picked some good talent. Its hard for me to believe FO isnt ready to make adjustments.
@Nick everyone thought there was a crazy person at the helm of the Rockets last summer. I was all about it, Props to them. They knew they could drag ass and tank for lottery or get nuts and make something happen. they took alot of chances. some of them went bad (royce white), but they ultimately got their Franchise piece with Harden in one year without years of tanking for lottery picks. I think Rockets have done a phenomenal job. Even Mchale was sketch on their movement but it paid off.
Logically thinking guys/girls I don’t see HOW the Jazz FO wouldn’t make a move before the Feb deadline. We are recently a proactive organization and it would be completely baffling if Utah didn’t make a move. How, HOW could be have 4 legitimate big men that could start for many NBA teams and have some many deficiencies elsewhere on our team and not make a move?
I mean this in all sincerity but as a fan if the Jazz FO just let this opportunity go I would be furious.
The thing is my friends this franchise RARELY gets an opportunity like this where we have great assets and have ANY advantage over most NBA teams. Not only will we have tons of cap space but we have tons of assets.
Utah fans THIS IS OUR TIME AS A FRANCHISE FOR ONCE TO MAKE A SPLASH…please please please may we take advantage of it!!!!
also great post KC!
I think the criticism on Corbin is a little brutal. He was doing a good job at the beginning of the year keeping everyone happy because ultimately I believe he wants to win. If Big Al or Sap feel slighted, they stop playing with heart and it spreads throughout the team. Now that that plan isn’t going as planned, sure it’s time to take a different approach especially if Kevin and Dennis are telling him that he is going to be without Millsap or Big Al soon.
The truth is, the lineup of Mo/Randy/Marvin/Paul/Al must be better than (let’s replace Burks with Tinsley or Watson because that’s what everyone wants to see) Burks/Carroll/Hayward/Favors/Kanter. I really like that 2nd unit but the glaring reality is that we need a top tier PG with Burks(SG)/Hayward/Favors/Kanter and better players than Murphy and Evans backing them up (assuming all of our aforementioned starters are gone when their expiring contracts are up at the end of the year)
It is fair to think that we could get some solid players or draft picks for any combination of Paul, Al, Mo, Marvin and Randy.
Utah isn’t the kind of organization to get rid of Coach Corbin. Look how long they kept Jarron Collins and Ronnie Price. They are way too nice and loyal to those who are loyal to them. I really like Stan Van Gundys (formerly in Orlando) style of coaching but that would never happen. What I would really like to see is for Matt Harpring to get added to the coaching staff. He sees where we need to improve and would be able to work with the youngsters on defense and toughness.
Don’t give up yet fellow Jazz fans! If we aren’t any better next year at this time, I’d begin to worry