NBA Thread 2020-21 Season | Page 198 | Syracusefan.com

NBA Thread 2020-21 Season

All the credit in the world to the Clippers. They could have easily folded after Leonard went down and instead they stuffed the Jazz in a locker.

What sucks is I don't think it's likely they can actually contend for the championship. Snyder has absolutely zero ability to make an adjustment, so once they were forced to go small he had no way at all to counter. Chris Paul won't let the Suns get suckered (I'm assuming he makes it back from Covid protocol in time to impact the series).
 
OttoinGrotto said:
All the credit in the world to the Clippers. They could have easily folded after Leonard went down and instead they stuffed the Jazz in a locker.

What sucks is I don't think it's likely they can actually contend for the championship. Snyder has absolutely zero ability to make an adjustment, so once they were forced to go small he had no way at all to counter. Chris Paul won't let the Suns get suckered (I'm assuming he makes it back from Covid protocol in time to impact the series).
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Didn’t see this coming myself. Your Jazz had a great season. Mitchell is someone you can’t help but like. He’s the complete opposite of Doncic.

Both of these teams had mental hurdles to get over this year. The Clips finally figured it out. Once the Jazz do the same, there will be no stopping them. The Blender’s not going away any time soon.
 
CuseFaninVT said:
He was useless
Expand...
He's in a tough spot.

He covers a lot of sins. They build everything around him.

The reality is though... they don't have perimeter defenders on the roster. Ingles can be a pest, and sometimes he's Slow Mo Joe. O'Neale works hard and has the reputation as their defensive guy, but the reality is he's the best of a limited rotation and isn't elite. Might even be average. Bojan isn't consistently good on defense. Mitchell focuses on offense. Conley's small. Niang is a regular season guy. Oni, whatever. Who do you turn to?

This was an obvious, glaring weakness on the roster but the front office decided to take a continuity approach coming off of the bubble, and it worked great for the regular season, but left the roster with a fatal flaw on perimeter defense.

It makes the off-season moves more puzzling. They used their first round pick on what amounted to being their third string center, that is another true big man that can't play anywhere else on the court, when a guy like Desmond Bane was available. They gave their full MLE to Derrick Favors, a guy that strictly plays the 5. Between the draft pick, Favors and Gobert that meant they had nearly $37M in salary committed to guys that are true 5s at a time when most NBA teams field competent small ball lineups for at least some portion of every game. It gets worse next season when Rudy's raise kicks in, because they'll have $47M committed to guys that can only play center. It's absurd. That number is insanity.

But they did that because they wanted to be able to play their style for 48 minutes a game. I guess it never occurred to them that they might ever need to adjust. Very costly thing to fail to realize.

They had the resources to address the gap. They had their draft pick. They had the MLE. Instead they hung everything on Rudy and he eventually broke because they don't have any perimeter defenders or anyone that can give them a small ball look.

I embrace chaos, so if I'm the Jazz - Snyder's done after a 3-1 playoff collapse and a 2-0 choke job, see if Carlisle is interested. Get a new front office. The training staff completely crapped their pants, so they're gone too. Mitchell and Gobert still work as your core. See if you can work out a sign and trade with Conley's new team so you have some roster flexibility. Dump Favors. Make some hard decisions on Bojan and Ingles. Go all chips in on Donovan as your creator/one and get some dudes on the perimeter that can actually defend.
 
Last edited:
Day2 said:
Didn’t see this coming myself. Your Jazz had a great season. Mitchell is someone you can’t help but like. He’s the complete opposite of Doncic.

Both of these teams had mental hurdles to get over this year. The Clips finally figured it out. Once the Jazz do the same, there will be no stopping them. The Blender’s not going away any time soon.
Expand...
The blender sounds fun but Snyder has shown that his team plays the way he wants to play. There's no counter punch or adjustment to make.

If they make a change coming off of him blowing a 3-1 lead in the bubble then this 2-0 lead, I'd get it.
 
OttoinGrotto said:
The blender sounds fun but Snyder has shown that his team plays the way he wants to play. There's no counter punch or adjustment to make.

If they make a change coming off of him blowing a 3-1 lead in the bubble then this 2-0 lead, I'd get it.
Expand...
Yeah, getting rid of Snyder is a move I would make, and not just because I don’t like him as a person. In addition to your points, I think the team gets tight because he gets tight. You can see it in his in-game interviews.

Carlisle would be a great fit.
 
The Gobert and picks for Ben Simmons trade is going to be such a doozy. Or is it Gobert and picks for Kemba?
 
OrangeDW said:
These blown 20+ point leads in the second half are crazy.

But they make sense given the current style of play.
Expand...

Yeah. I meant to say missed the second half as I did catch most of the first half. Totally floored when I saw the result.
 
Melancer46 said:
A new pick becomes available each year!
Expand...
They have some weird conditions and things that lock up their picks for different time tables in accordance with the Stepien rule for the next few years, with protections that potentially bounce the time tables out even more.

That's why using last season's first rounder on a center, when that's the cornerstone player of your team and the position you're about to give a fat extension to, made absolutely zero sense.
 
OttoinGrotto said:
He's in a tough spot.

He covers a lot of sins. They build everything around him.

The reality is though... they don't have perimeter defenders on the roster. Ingles can be a pest, and sometimes he's Slow Mo Joe. O'Neale works hard and has the reputation as their defensive guy, but the reality is he's the best of a limited rotation and isn't elite. Might even be average. Bojan isn't consistently good on defense. Mitchell focuses on offense. Conley's small. Niang is a regular season guy. Oni, whatever. Who do you turn to?

This was an obvious, glaring weakness on the roster but the front office decided to take a continuity approach coming off of the bubble, and it worked great for the regular season, but left the roster with a fatal flaw on perimeter defense.

It makes the off-season moves more puzzling. They used their first round pick on what amounted to being their third string center, that is another true big man that can't play anywhere else on the court, when a guy like Desmond Bane was available. They gave their full MLE to Derrick Favors, a guy that strictly plays the 5. Between the draft pick, Favors and Gobert that meant they had nearly $37M in salary committed to guys that are true 5s at a time when most NBA teams field competent small ball lineups for at least some portion of every game. It gets worse next season when Rudy's raise kicks in, because they'll have $47M committed to guys that can only play center. It's absurd. That number is insanity.

But they did that because they wanted to be able to play their style for 48 minutes a game. I guess it never occurred to them that they might ever need to adjust. Very costly thing to fail to realize.

They had the resources to address the gap. They had their draft pick. They had the MLE. Instead they hung everything on Rudy and he eventually broke because they don't have any perimeter defenders or anyone that can give them a small ball look.

I embrace chaos, so if I'm the Jazz - Snyder's done after a 3-1 playoff collapse and a 2-0 choke job, see if Carlisle is interested. Get a new front office. The training staff completely crapped their pants, so they're gone too. Mitchell and Gobert still work as your core. See if you can work out a sign and trade with Conley's new team so you have some roster flexibility. Dump Favors. Make some hard decisions on Bojan and Ingles. Go all chips in on Donovan as your creator/one and get some dudes on the perimeter that can actually defend.
Expand...
I hear what you are saying, but (and there’s always a but) he did almost nothing well in the second half last night. The clips drove at will into the lane and floated numerous layups over his outstretched but ineffective arms. He was terrible at closing out on threes. And he had 2 or 3 offensive boards ripped right out of his hands.
 
CuseFaninVT said:
I hear what you are saying, but (and there’s always a but) he did almost nothing well in the second half last night. The clips drove at will into the lane and floated numerous layups over his outstretched but ineffective arms. He was terrible at closing out on threes. And he had 2 or 3 offensive boards ripped right out of his hands.
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Agreed, he played poorly.

But that's actually super rare for him. He's gotten to the point where he almost never has a bad game. When he does, the Jazz fall apart. In this case, he had a really bad half at the absolute worst time possible. The thing is, if he plays better... the Clippers still may have come back.

I don't know. He's shouldering the blame for this. He's certainly responsible for some of it, visibly a lot of it. It's too lazy of a hot take though to pin it all on him. I know that's not what you're doing, it's part of the chatter today though.

I think the bigger issue is that the Jazz used both their draft pick and full MLE to solidify the 17 minutes a game that Gobert isn't on the court with other true centers instead of building into the roster the flexibility to shore up the perimeter defense/play small ball. The front office rolled the dice that those weaknesses wouldn't be an issue because they thought continuity was their best chance to compete. Maybe it was, but it didn't get them as far as they needed it to.

It's going to be ugly around here. There's a real sense among the fanbase here that the stars aligned as well as they ever have for the Jazz to win the title, and they couldn't even beat an undermanned Clippers squad to get to the conference finals. It's a bad choke. People are going to regret it forever.
 
OttoinGrotto said:
Agreed, he played poorly.

But that's actually super rare for him. He's gotten to the point where he almost never has a bad game. When he does, the Jazz fall apart. In this case, he had a really bad half at the absolute worst time possible. The thing is, if he plays better... the Clippers still may have come back.

I don't know. He's shouldering the blame for this. He's certainly responsible for some of it, visibly a lot of it. It's too lazy of a hot take though to pin it all on him. I know that's not what you're doing, it's part of the chatter today though.

I think the bigger issue is that the Jazz used both their draft pick and full MLE to solidify the 17 minutes a game that Gobert isn't on the court with other true centers instead of building into the roster the flexibility to shore up the perimeter defense/play small ball. The front office rolled the dice that those weaknesses wouldn't be an issue because they thought continuity was their best chance to compete. Maybe it was, but it didn't get them as far as they needed it to.

It's going to be ugly around here. There's a real sense among the fanbase here that the stars aligned as well as they ever have for the Jazz to win the title, and they couldn't even beat an undermanned Clippers squad to get to the conference finals. It's a bad choke. People are going to regret it forever.
Expand...
The Clippers were definitely not underManned.
 
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