Box Score

Im kinda new to watching ball at a high level so bear with me here. When I go to NBA advanced stats I see that this season, Lauri has not been the pick and roll man enough to qualify for the stat to be tracked. Granted it's only been 2 games but I checked last year. It says that he was the roll man a little under twice a game. On the one hand that's a pretty good number, and would explain why he is not on the 2024 leaderboards yet, as you need 10 positions of the type, and 1.8*4 is 7.2, less then the 10 possession type threshold that NBA stats sets. On the other hand I feel like he is one of the most capable screen setters in the league. He is 7'0 240 (Heavier then derrick lively) and against a lot of teams should be able to threaten both the roll and the pop. He shot almost 40 percent from three last season. His % from less then 10 feet was not quite as good for someone of his size, but not enough that you want to let him drive. Im still new to learning basketball and would love to hear all of your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

[Game link](https://www.espn.com/nba/game/\_/gameId/401704714/jazz-nuggets)

I'd put the Over/Under at 1.5 now with Hendricks suffering a pretty major injury that will cost him the season after getting very little playing time as a rookie. I would be surprised if Keyonte isn't at least a rotation player but there's been similar type players that fall off and wash out after a promising start. Can't put any stock in any of the rookies but nobody is a sure bet, even Cody who has the size and profile of an ideal, prototypical NBA wing has plenty of wholes in his game and still pretty raw.

It's been a long time since I've shared thoughts about the team but with the Taylor Hendricks injury, I feel as if it's a good time to chat with the other fans. Taylor was going to be an all star caliber role player in my eyes, at worst Jaden McDaniels, at best, something we haven't seen yet. I still believe in him, but truth be told the rebuild is going to take probably as long as we expected initially in mid 2022 post Donovan trade. I think the vast majority of you guys will agree with a lot of this write up here but the disagreements are moreso aimed at the casual fans, anyways, this is long and I'm sorry lol.

But to start from the top I just want to say that I understand the negativity to an extent, over the past few weeks I've seen stuff on the team Instagram comments about how we should fire Danny/will etc, and not only do I disagree with the sentiment but I can give you a lot of reasons why I still think they've done a stellar job on putting us in a good trajectory, which I'll get back to in a bit.

Like I said though, here's what I agree with in terms of frustration, the prices on tickets.. we're purposely putting out a poor product and charging around the most we've ever charged to attend games. It's ok to be frustrated with this, I wouldn't recommend attending games unless you enjoy watching development of young players or are bored and can afford it.

What I do think is a bit frustrating is how much our fans overreact due to their lack of understanding of the front office' plan. I'm not trying to make the average or "casual" Jazz fan sound like they don't know anything but a lot of the time when I hear people hating on Danny Ainge it's for reasons that don't really make a lot of sense.

Danny is one of the most talented managers in the NBA, he built not one, but two Celtics championship rosters in two different eras of basketball, and I'm a bit surprised at just how little Jazz fans seem to know about that 2008 Celtics title. That's right we're going on a small history lesson tangent.

In the summer of 07 Danny Ainge and Boston's FO realized they weren't getting their guy in the draft (KD) after a 24 win tank season. They had in prior seasons not fully bottomed out and acquired good pieces but not a true superstar, and oh man did they have a lot of fat to trim on that roster. Sound familiar?

Boston sent out a collection of assets (Al Jefferson being one) for Kevin Garnett, and another smaller collection of assets for Ray Allen, to form a "superteam", and this would immediately turn the Celtics into the team that won a championship. Boston got the one chip out of that, and had multiple chances to get another out of it.

Now the modern Celtics rebuild was also really helped out by Danny although the finishing touches were thanks to Brad Stevens, but Danny realized it was time to move on and traded KG and Pierce for picks from Brooklyn which.. turned into Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.

I'm not gonna go super in depth on Boston but to make this easy to understand, Ainge always has one goal in mind, how can I win a championship, he doesn't care about player relations nearly as much as people seem to want, he doesn't care if you have memories as a fanbase of some player, he moves on, see Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley, Joe Ingles, Bojan Bogdanavic, Jarred Vanderbilt etc and soon probably Jordan Clarkson and a collection of young guys.

People are wishing Utah were better this year and I feel like it's pointless because unless you're going to win a chip, you need to put yourself on the best path to get there, and the best path isn't by being a low seed playoff team. Did we fail to bottom out previously? Yeah because contrary to popular belief, Danny is awesome at accidentally crafting good teams lmao. Even if he intentionally set those teams up a certain way, it's no secret that he wanted Wemby in 2023. Despite that he's still changed Utah from having no draft capital and a 2nd round exit team to a team loaded with draft capital that currently could develop into a playoff team while having extra assets.. which is a great start.

But I'm telling you, if he wanted to get a winning team this year, or was trying to, he could've. Tyus Jones went for a minimum/bordering minimum deal to Phoenix, same with Gary Trent Jr to Milwaukee. Under the new CBA you have to use 90% of your salary cap, so to avoid accidentally getting a team too good for Cooper Flagg, we overspent on Drew Eubanks to help reach the salary floor, kept Collins for the same reason, got Patty mills who should've retired because he's a mentor but also isn't going to win you anything (unlike Olynyk/Conley) and didn't do anything to give us a fighting chance of being a playoff team on purpose.

I've seen so many people say that Ainge is bad at building a winning roster but like, really? It's absolutely clear that the goal right now what these same fans have asked for for years, to bottom out, and had we gotten Tyus Jones/Isaac Okoro/Gary Trent, sure we might've been the 8 seed, but then you're in NBA purgatory or in a spot we've spent years in prior to this era.

There's a chance Cody, Flip and Collier are all in the top 5 players of this last draft when it's said and done, and I don't think it matters that we didn't bottom out in 24' but in 25 with the talent at the top we had to. Now this is where I get bold, because with a 14% chance to land Flagg as a bottom team, and slim chances of even getting Ace Bailey, I'm wondering if we see a similar situation to what Ainge did in Boston in 07, the question is, who is KG and Ray Allen? Well I might be able to answer this.

We've got a boatload of unproven assets, we've asset churned very well, and some teams are eying these pieces, some teams that are falling apart as we speak. Now for a moment here let me be crazy because obviously I dream of Flagg or Ace and doing this rebuild normally, but Utah could absolutely go take advantage of a Milwaukee team falling apart and potentially get their version of Garnett in Giannis.

Alright so that's crazy for one, but also how does this deal get done? Well it probably doesn't happen because we could just let someone else outbid and keep churning assets for the future to save up for the biggest collection in the league surpassing OKC (I wish), but realistically we can offer something like Cody, Collins, Sexton and picks (a lot of picks), and the goal would be pairing Lauri and Giannis to make our team a matchup nightmare.

But I'm missing a piece to this puzzle, Ray Allen, and the guy that initially came to mind was Devin Booker, but like, we aren't getting Giannis and D-Book, we might get one or the other in a lucky scenario, but the guy I really think of here is Coby White from Chicago. He's not a star yet but he very well could border it, and he's going to cost you, just not gobs of assets the way Booker would.

My point of that though is the team is actively still "big game hunting" but they're not looking for ways to be just good, they're looking for ways to be truly Elite while still maintaining assets to grow on the side. They've made this clear and I would assume they want to be competitive by 2027, but I think unless some crazy deal appears, they probably should tank 2026 as well especially post Hendricks injury.

It's going to be hard this year. Guys will have fake injuries alongside the real. We'll throw games out the window, we might actually be the worst team by seasons end and we still might get pick 5, but through that we're still building a team that can be very complete or at least one that can net us the guys we need to get us to the next level.

The majority of you already knew this too like I said, but to those of you that genuinely can't handle this rebuild, I promise you the years of 2nd round exits and playoff chokes were not as fun as what the finished version of this team will provide. I'm a big believer in that.

Edit: one thing I wanted to add and will probably add more as remembered, no matter where the young guys are now, struggling or not, they're all still functional as currency in trades, and I'm sure management views them that way. Key might be struggling, but a lot of NBA teams would love to take a flier on him, as they would with Cody, flip, Walker, Brice, Collier and even Taylor despite the injury. I think we tend to overanalyze the game by game on these guys when realistically they're going to need a good chunk of the season to figure it out because they really don't have a huge cushion of help anymore.

And I say that to say....let's be patient and not bury guys after 5 games.

But I also say that we need to stop hedging and stop equivocating on what we're witnessing. Cody is possibly the worst player in the league. He's not ready for NBA minutes. He's weak on the ball, he's indecisive as a decision maker/processor, has off-ball/help focus issues defensively, lack of strength hurts him as a finisher, been a disaster as a shooter on wide open shots from really summer league. He's not an NBA player right now, which is OK. It's 5 games into his rookie year. Let's not overreact...if he's performing this badly later in the year, then you have a problem, but right now....it's early and he's thrown into a role above his current abilities.

#3 and his level of play sucks. Let's call it what it is. There's no excuse, and people on here make too many excuses and qualify too much with him. He sucks right now. And it's worse in the light of other rookies who struggled making clear leaps in Bilal Coulibaly, Scoot Henderson. Gradey Dick has made a leap. You're supposed to make a leap in Year 2. We're supposed to see consistent progress. Blazers offense is a joke and Dick is in a terrible situation with injuries and they've still taken a leap. This team lacking shot creation *and* shooting makes it really difficult for any guard to thrive, but Sexton is able to remain efficient. So the idea it's impossible is flat out not the case. It's about the player and his weaknesses, which are the same as always, including at Baylor, but I do think the defense has improved a bit which isn't nothing. Screens still are an issue but he's a lot more locked in on that end which isn't nothing.

He's still only 20 years old though, learning the hardest position on the fly, with very little roster/rotation cohesion around him. He has not been in the best position to succeed and the Jazz don't run the simplest offense either. There are feel concerns, there are IMO athleticism concerns, etc., but it's going to be a gradual effort in developing his processing talent, and this is the season to do so.

Sensabaugh has definitely improved. His role has been simplified to a 3/D role which he is performing well in. He was never gonna be an NBA star realistically but he can be a solid role guy and 3rd/4th option potentially down the line. He isn't much of a playmaker defensively or offensively though, and may have a limited ceiling....I feel fans are being a bit carried away about his outlook, but he too is young and you like to see he growing into a role.

Let's be patient as a fan base. We have to accept that this organization has clearly punted on this season for the future. It's for the best in the long run if we hit in the draft. Let's focus on the growth of these guys and how that all ties in together as a unit. We've seen solid individual growth in a few players; Filipowski has gone from being a total fish out of water early in summer league to being one of the highest floor players on this team....he doesn't fuck up. He's not perfect but he doesn't sabotage the team, unlike several others.

They haven't meshed yet as a unit, and realistically several guys look to not have assured futures in Utah whatsoever, but it's only been 5 games. I'm holding out hope it'll look much better as the season goes on, and you should too. But we can be honest about what we're watching while doing that too.

Went to my first game of the season last night, figured this was new. The free chicken isn't just a game attendee thing anymore, it's a state wide thing. You just have to activate it 15-30 minutes after the misses happen, according to the graphic they showed at the game last night.

I didn't catch the entire fourth quarter because my kid had a meltdown but I wasn't aware of this changing, last year you had to be in the arena to claim.

These no potential dudes are getting too many minutes.

I'd much rather watch Sensabaugh and Filippwski chuck up shots then dudes who can't finish around the rim.

Also, why is Cody Williams getting so many minutes?
Is he really the D and 3 wing they were hoping Taylor Hendricks was gonna be.

Anyways. Just airing grievances.

I wanna see Lauri and Flip do some big man passing á la Kelly Olynik.

How Sexton is not our starting PG is beyond me. Play Sensabaugh at SG...Play Juzang at SG. Hell play Collier. I simply cannot watch George anymore. Trade him for a bag of peanuts if that's what it takes.

Starting George=losing culture.

Box Score

[Game link](https://www.espn.com/nba/game/\_/gameId/401704696/spurs-jazz)

I thought the Jazz were bringing out new jerseys with the purple mountain design this year? I was disappointed to see they were still wearing the highlighters

Ok, I won’t go into specifics about how long I’ve been a Jazz fan (30+ years) or how I got eviscerated on here for saying I miss watching winning basketball with my young son and that tanking took that away from him (damn, y’all were hella mean about him enjoying basketball and missing Joe Ingels) and will instead tell all of you that I don’t think/believe in this tanking plan you’ve all drank the kool-aid on.

I think it’s bullshit and won’t work. It’s more than getting the number one pick, it’s about creating a team with depth and a mixture of vets.

I don’t believe we’re on pace for that.

So get mad at me…downvote me…talk shit on me and my 12 year old for missing winning basketball…but I don’t believe in this strategy and I look forward to referencing this post when I’m right. I’m sure you will all Continue to make bullshit excuses (Donnie didn’t want to be here, etc) but I will Still call you out for your failed tank plan.

And if I’m wrong? Well, then I’ll eat crow and enjoy our success.

Not happening though.

Bring on the downvotes, bitches 🙂

No other team can say that! #tanknote

We play San Antonio four times before Thanksgiving and they're the worst team we play until Portland on Dec 6. We might take them once, and maybe have another fluke win in there somewhere, but we have a very tough schedule for the next several weeks

It was a good run that ended up being 129 games long. Shame that he got injured and was only 3 points short of continuing the streak.

New streak coming, catching up to KD

If the draft were to happen today and we landed the #2 spot who would you draft

View Poll

Shouldn't the lineups and substitutions be more consistent for player development?

I get injuries will affect who starts and who plays, but shouldn't some combination of Keyonte, Brice, Collier, Williams, Flip, and Kessler be playing together?

I'd be happy to see Sexton, JC, and Collins get all their minutes together, or even start if it helps trade value and allows the young guys to build chemistry.

Box Score

We tanking. It's hard to watch. Young guys looking good. I hope it only takes a year for us to be competitive.

[Game link](https://www.espn.com/nba/game/\_/gameId/401704681/kings-jazz)