Photos by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images
After a good loss against the San Antonio Spurs, Andy Larsen, Clint Johnson, and Denim Millward got together and recorded their predictions for the 2014 calendar year for the Utah Jazz. In this podcast, we get out our crystal balls, and answer the following questions:
All that on another edition of the Salt City Hoops Podcast!
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Burke. (ROY)
No one.
33 wins. 8th worst.
Aaron Gordon.
Trey Burke, Gordon Hayward. Lance Stephenson, Marvin Williams, Derrick Favors
Head Coach.
Joe gave better answers than anyone else on the show. Nice job.
Interesting, thoughtful answers, Joe. It’s hard for me to see Trey getting ROY as long as Carter-Williams is putting up 17/7/6 and competing the league lead in steals. If the Jazz do win 33 games, that might raise enough eyebrows to put him over the top, though.
Sheesh. Taking a young team and making them look pretty good in the Western Conference is pretty noteworthy. The team was terrible on offense and defense at the beginning of the season (playing a 3rd-string point guard, a small forward who didn’t play last year, and 2 bigs who only went against 2nd teams their whole career (oh, by the way, with not a single starter from last year)), and now they look better on offense and defense. Who is responsible for this transition? Ty Corbin!
I had to suffer through watching Jerry Sloan be unwilling to make ANY adjustments to his team when they were getting killed in the playoffs for years, and Ty is willing to look at what’s going on and make adjustments to the team to get them to win.
The suggestion that Ty is going to be let go for lack of development is ridiculous. He’ll be coaching the Utah Jazz next year.
By the way, citing that the Bobcats are good on defense with Al Jefferson has some serious flaws. Al Jeff was injured for the beginning of the season, and the Bobcats were really showing some toughness on D during that time. Just like the Jazz are suffering from their beginning of the year performance, the Bobcats are benefitting from theirs. Don’t forget, they play in the East. Steve Clifford has really implemented a defense-first philosophy for this team, hurrying back on defense, not letting guys beat you, and clogging the paint.
I think that part of the improvement should be attributed to player development and maturation as the season goes along, as well as the impact of Trey Burke as a starter. That said, I too believe that Corbin deserves more credit for the respectable performance of his team than is sometimes offered.
That said, I do think the defensive benchmark has the possibility of being a real problem for him. If the Jazz’s cultural priority is defensive intensity and attention to detail, they are still struggling mightily with much of that. If there were not notable improvement going forward, it would be hard for management to credibly claim that the team under Corbin has shown real strides on that top priority.
Great podcast gentlemen! One quick thing I think deserves a specific comment, an area I agree completely with Clint: a top-3 pick in this draft will not be attainable by a trade for anything other than a Godfather offer of either a current top-15 player or, at minimum, an above-average rotation player and two ELITE prospects, plus likely some sort of pick. Swirling conversation regarding this year’s class being weaker than projected (most recently by Simmons, Rose, and Doug Collins on the ESPN Countdown) is incredibly premature and short-sighted. If anything, the emergence of Embiid as a legitimate number one pick contender only strengthens the class a bit more.
Oh, and if they DO happen to get the high pick, they should take Wiggins if he’s available. Can’t wait to be back on the air next week!