I don’t think he has much of an argument to be ahead of Jokic, Giannis, or Embiid personally. He’s been amazing down the stretch but unfortunately the start to his season really messed him up. Even after his incredible play to end the season, Dallas has statistically been better when he’s on the bench. He’s also taken a step back this season in his scoring efficiency and he’s obviously nowhere near Giannis and Embiid defensively (though like Jokic, he’s made significant strides here).
Once he figures out that he should start the season in shape there will be no looking back.
Yup.
He's the only chip worth keeping. He needs the ball in his hands but they need to find a #2 guy next to him. Butler should have been that guy. Maybe keep Paschall, Forrest and Butler and entertain offers for everyone else. After Saturday night, which would have given them good positioning for the playoffs, they choked it away and lost any momentum. Ainge was a fricken curse. I can't stand that guy.
I back Gobert over Mitchell for 2 reasons.
I think this is all basically correct. If I'm choosing one of them to build around, I think I'd rather build around Rudy. Rudy at least knows he's not the guy that you're going to run your offense through (though you can obviously involve him better than Utah has). I tend to think Mitchell just isn't good enough to be your offensive centerpiece while Rudy is clearly good enough to be your defensive centerpiece.
Nobody on the Jazz defends. It's all Rudy.
I think Rudy has proven to be pretty scheme diverse at this point. You don’t have to play drop defense with him and you also don’t have to play it in such a way that you just give up a million open 3’s to elite shooters. Utah is pretty much hopeless defensively outside of Rudy. They just can’t stay in front of people anymore.
The only guy who supposedly better than average defensively is Royce O'Neale who occasionally can also shoot the three but is the 4th option or 5th option on offense. Klay Thompson torched O'Neale and it wasn't close.
Valid points but RJ Barrett isn't the answer. Jazz will fall to the lottery without Mitchell. So many teams in the NBA are younger and getting better and will pass them by. I love Gobert and he almost helped carry France to a gold medal, but I see too many pedestrian centers play him almost even and too many guys shoot over him when he exits the paint. He has a huge impact on the game but except for a perfect pass for a dunk he has nothing on the offensive end. How about a little jump hook. I saw more the last couple games of him trying things on the offensive end then in the last six seasons. Plus many Jazz fans are sick of him getting the ball down low and then get stripped of the ball.
I'm not suggesting that the only thing to change is to swap Barrett and Mitchell. My assumption is that there are other moves to make to change the roster.
