Easily the most consistently powerful emotion I feel when I watch Mad Men is guilt. Obviously I feel a healthy degree of vicarious guilt for all of the horrible things the characters do to each other, but mostly I’m speaking about the guilt I feel independent of my vicarious experience. For every single character on the show whom I have vehemently despised, I have subsequently sympathized with. This means guilt. Guilt for all of the vitriolic things I mentally declared to be true about a character that I will only regret. Because about 80% of Mad Men scenes involve one or more characters doing something reprehensibly cruel to one or more other characters, I have hated and regretted hating every single character on the show (this necessarily must exclude Danny Siegel, because, come on, what’s there to hate?). I say this because, in at least this way, Al Jefferson is a Mad Men character.

This is unfair to Al Jefferson, because of course, he’s a real person and (thankfully) no one on Mad Men is. Still, everything I hear Al Jefferson say, every time I read a tweet about him, everything I know about his upbringing, makes me wholeheartedly love the man. Then, 15 minutes into a game against the Hornets and three wasted possessions later, I am yelling unspeakable things about him. Then the game is over, I watch his postgame interview, and the heavy burden of the guilt sets in. It’s horrible. It really is. Still, if someone were to tell me, “Evan, you remind me of a Mad Men character,” I might initially fall into a bout of self-loathing, but then, inexplicably, I would feel complimented. So, Al Jefferson, you remind me of all the Mad Men characters.

Offseason Accomplishments: Well, there’s the thoroughly exhausted issue of the bed. There are plenty of other things, but seriously, look at that bed.

Patronus: Ox. You know, oxen are strangely majestic animals.

Stat to watch: Minutes played. That’s right. I went there. Frankly, Al Jefferson’s stats are probably the most predictable of any Jazz player. If Big Al averages anything besides 19 points, 10 boards and roughly 50% from the field, I’ll be shocked. What would also shock me, but in a more hopeful way, is if Al were to move to the bench and mow down opposing back-up centers like Hayward mows down Germans on Call of Duty (Was that a seamless reference? Are there Germans on Call of Duty? Truthfully speaking, I know nothing about Call of Duty, except that it’s a shooter and that Gordon Hayward plays it). Then his minutes would go down, the first unit would run everyone out of the gym, and Jefferson would keep the Jazz’s offensive output from slipping when the starters hit the bench.

Three Outcomes for the Season

1. Al moves to the bench, the Jazz start Favors at center and play small-ball for 38 minutes a game. Al averages 15 and 8 in limited minutes and gets a nice contract from Houston in the offseason.

2. Last season but with three point shooting. Al still averages 16 shots a game, but because of the shooting, he has more space, and the Jazz make a deeper playoff season run (hardly difficult, considering it would only take one playoff win to constitute “deeper” than last season).

3. Al gets traded. This is growing increasingly likely as Favors gets better. Either Millsap or Al needs to go, and since Millsap fits slightly better into the system of the future, I think Jefferson is the more likely trade chip. If this were to happen mid-season, I still genuinely believe the Jazz would make the playoffs. As difficult as it would be for the Jazz to lose their second best player, they are far too deep this season to be kept out of the playoffs because of the loss of one player.

Over the offseason, Enes Kanter became by far the most talked about Jazz player on the team. In fact, in terms of the NBA-wide attention it has received, the Kanter offseason transformation story has become the most talked about Jazz-related story since Greg Miller attempted to verbally body-slam Karl Malone (which, verbally or not, is never a good idea). In case you do not have Twitter or you were in a remote village in southern Honduras for the last four months with no internet, here are five places where you can read up on all of Kanter’s offseason antics. By the way, these are in no particular order. Is Salt City Hoops listed as number one? Sure. Is that a coincidence? Probably not. Does that mean we think we’re better than those other sites? Definitely not. Am I asking myself easy questions to distract you from our shameless self-promotion? Um… Your comprehensive guide to “The Summer of Kanter”:

5. Enes Kanter on NBA.com

4. Enes Kanter on TrueHoop

3. Enes Kanter on Deadspin

2. Enes Kanter on Deseret News’ Jazz blog

1. Enes Kanter on Salt City Hoops

Offseason Accomplishments: See above. For a comprehensive summary of the content of those links, you could just look at this picture.

Patronus: Earl Watson. Confused? Metaphorically speaking, a Patronus is a protector, the Jungian archetype of our inner animal instinct for self-preservation. In fact, the best English rendering for the Latin word “Patronus” would be patron, benefactor, or protector. Though in the Harry Potter cosmology, the Patronus appears infrequently as a messenger or as an apparition of warning, it is primarily used in the purpose of the aforementioned guardianship. If then, we were to look at the Harry Potter universe and the basketball arena both as figurative representations of the struggle within our divided selves–our unprotected and helpless psyche manifesting itself as a witch without her wand or as an exposed, second-year Turkish center without the proven toughness of his fearless back-up point guard–we see that there is a repressed, psychological need for that watchful, protective shadow. I think then, it’s abundantly clear that Earl Watson would have to be Enes Kanter’s patronus.

Stat to Watch: Rebounding Percentage. While his offense disappointed at times during his rookie year, Enes Kanter’s rebounding never did. The difficulty in gauging the prospective success of a rookie is that his strengths are never developed enough to prove that they may outweigh his weaknesses. In other words, a rookie may have a skill set, but until that rookie becomes a more established version of himself, we cannot know whether those skills are potent enough and whether his weaknesses are manageable enough to justify his presence on the court. We already know with Enes Kanter. His offense may never develop (extremely unlikely, considering he is only 20 and he has already shown at least some post moves this preseason that were absent last season), but he already possesses an elite NBA skill: rebounding. If you give Enes Kanter 25 minutes of playing time, you are guaranteed at least eight rebounds. In his rookie season (HIS ROOKIE SEASON), Kanter averaged 11.5 rebounds per 36 minutes. He also had a better offensive rebounding percentage than Dwight Howard and Kevin Love. Typically those percentages go down as playing time goes up, but even taking such a dip into consideration, Kanter can still be reasonably expected to place in the top 10 of that statistical category for the foreseeable future.

Three Outcomes for the Season:

1. Kanter finishes the season as the Jazz’s starting center. This could happen a variety of ways. The most likely are that Al Jefferson gets either injured or traded, which forces Ty Corbin to either go small and start Favors at center or to turn to Kanter. Given Corbin’s commitment to traditional definitions of positions, he would probably choose gradually bring along Kanter as the starter. There is the extremely unlikely possibility that Kanter plays well enough in back-up minutes that he takes the center position from Big Al, but again, this is extremely unlikely. For this to happen, Corbin would have to be confident that the Jazz’s wing players could carry the offensive load.

2. Kanter spends this season backing up Jefferson and training to become the center of the future. If Jefferson plays the season out with the Jazz (and I think he will) and Kanter takes significant steps forward in his offensive game, the Jazz will have no reason to re-sign Jefferson, and Kanter will be the opening day starter one year from now.

3. Kanter busts. I don’t think this will happen, but since I’ve spent the last 700 words recklessly hyping him, I felt obligated to add a reverse-jinx caveat to everything I’ve said. So yeah. Kanter will bust.

Last week, we asked 12 Jazz bloggers to rank all 15 Jazz players from best to worst in a project we’re calling JazzRank. Over the next two weeks and leading up to opening night, we will be unveiling those rankings one by one along with a brief sketch of each player, culminating with a post on the Jazz player voted the best on the roster. In the final post, we’ll even make sure to include the twitter handles for every writer that voted, so you can troll the ones with whom you vehemently disagreed (you’re welcome, Jimbo’s Uncle).

Here’s how the voting worked: Each writer submitted his list of the best to worst Jazz players ranked from 1-15, and we allotted points in reverse order, with the Jazz player listed as #1 on the list receiving 15 votes, etc. All votes for former Jazz players and/or current Jazz coaches (I’m looking at you, Brandon) were duly noted and immediately discounted.

In case you’ve read this far and you’re still unsure that dousing the already raging fire of the Jazz Twitterverse with arbitrary and divise rankings is a good idea, let us quiet your fears and assuage your doubts: it most definitely isn’t. Enjoy!

They’re playing a different game than we are.

There’s an imbalance here, right? We can all agree on that fact? That the rules for the Haves in the NBA are distinctly different than for the Have-nots? That on the court, players battle and it’s fair, but that in the war waged in front offices, the fairness ideal is a Maginot line? That in the end, when you consider the history of the league, you start to feel a little naive for ever believing otherwise? Because while some teams fight to stay relevant, and other teams fight to win a playoff series, still other teams fight for championships. Those teams fight for banners, for dynasties, and for a place in the Pantheon of Greatness. The Jazz are not one of those other teams. The Lakers are.

During the most recent playoffs, as I gleefully watched the Oklahoma City Thunder manhandle the Los Angeles Lakers in five games, I felt a certain inevitability to the Lakers return to prominence. I thought back to the last time the Lakers were not a legitimate contender for the championship–the Pre-Gasol Kobe Lakers–and I instinctively wondered what incredible feats of roster-assembling prowess the Lakers would achieve during the offseason. Who are they going to get? How are they going to get back into the Finals? They need speed and athleticism. How are they going to get it?

Shockingly, I never once considered whether they would do it. I never even wondered. There was no “if.” The Lakers were going to lure marquee players, either out of free agency or from another team’s roster, but they were going to do it. Had someone approached me with the possibility that the Lakers might not improve, but that they would slowly fade into relative obscurity until they could reload in the draft (the cyclical pattern for teams like the Hawks, the Hornets, and now the Magic), I would have openly scoffed at them. “The Lakers? The Lakers are never obscure! The Lakers don’t fade; they retool and return. Other teams’ rosters are the Lakers NBDL team. The whole NBA is Mitch Kupchak’s summer shopping catalog.” No, the Lakers will be back. They’ll be back, because they are playing a different game than the Jazz.

A couple weeks ago, after watching Team USA thrash another overwhelmed opponent in Olympic pool play, co-SCH writer Jackson Rudd and I attempted a list of our top 20 players in the NBA. 1-15 weren’t particularly difficult, and though the specifics of such a list would predictably incite healthy debate (read: vitriolic troll war) among NBA fans, most educated followers of the league would probably produce a similar list. According to our list and as soon as the Dwight blockbuster is made official, the Lakers will have 3 of our top 15 players (Kobe, Dwight Howard and Nash). The Heat have two of the top 10. The Thunder have 2 of the top 15, and the Celtics have 2 of the top 20. That list doesn’t include Pau Gasol (at least a top 40 player) on the Lakers, James Harden (top 30) on the Thunder, or Chris Bosh (probably top 30; however tempted I am to drop him lower) on the Heat. For those keeping score, this means that the Lakers, Heat, Thunder account for 7 or almost 50% of the top 15 players in the league, and with the Celtics, 9 of the top 20 players in the league.

Now one could make the argument that the assembling of super teams doesn’t necessarily translate to winning, but one would probably have to be an idiot to truly believe it. The Heat just won the title. The Thunder were the team they had to beat to do it. The Celtics were in the Eastern Conference Finals, and the Spurs (who have Tony Parker, a top 20 player, and depending on how you feel about either Manu Ginobili or Tim Duncan, probably have two top 30 players) were the other Western Conference finalist. Then of course the Lakers, assuming the Howard trade goes through and barring injury, will almost certainly be back in the Western Conference finals next season. In other words, you need really good players to make really good teams. Earth shattering.

This takes us to the Jazz. The most optimistic argument you could make for our current roster is that Favors is a future top 15 player, Hayward is a future top 25 player, and right now, Jefferson and Millsap are both top 40 players. When I call that optimistic, I’m really saying that it’s shamelessly homerism. Realistically, Hayward will probably end up in the top 45 range, and Favors probably in the top 30, which leaves the team with Burks, Kanter, Jefferson, Millsap, the Williams boys and the rest of our bench to turn into a couple more top 30 players, or at least one top 15 player. Because if history and the previous paragraph have taught us anything, it’s that you don’t have a puncher’s chance at reaching the Finals without two top 30 players, and without two or three top 20 players, you’re never going to sniff the trophy.

The popular response to this is that Oklahoma City, a small-market team, went from nowhere (literally nowhere; like the team didn’t even exist five years ago) to the Finals through a series of savvy moves and some intelligent drafting, but that thinking ignores that OKC also lucked into Kevin Durant, who happens to be a once-in-a-generation megastar that loves playing for a small market team and cares about nothing but basketball. That NEVER happens. As brilliantly as Sam Presti has played the last four years, the Thunder would still have been struggling for a playoff spot if it weren’t for Kevin Pritchard selecting Greg Oden with the #1 overall pick in 2007. So either you’re a great basketball market with a penchant for attracting great players, or you’re lightning-striking-50-times-in-the-exact-same-place kind of lucky.

Fortunately for Jazz fans, about 25 years ago, Utah really was that lucky. In back-to-back drafts, the Jazz used a 16th pick and a 13th pick to draft two of the greatest players to ever play the game, both of whom happened to fit perfectly into a system developed by a once-in-a-generation coach. After watching Stockton and Malone play together for all of my childhood, lucky seems like an inadequate word to describe how that goldmine was struck, but lucky it was. Out of that foundation, Jazz fans were treated to two magical trips to the NBA Finals, only to be defeated in consecutive years by one of the NBA’s Haves. Ever since, our appetites have been whetted, and our expectations have been sky-high. For awhile, I even naively believed the Jazz were in the elite community of NBA teams who were always contending for titles. While I still believe the Jazz could win a championship, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s a mile-wide chasm between teams who are always in the hunt and the rest of the NBA, who can do nothing more than buy and scratch at lottery tickets. Unfortunately, when the dust has settled after this four-team trade, I’m afraid I’ll finally feel the full weight of reality: that the Jazz are much more like the other three teams in last night’s trade than they are like the Lakers.

This is not to say there is no hope. As Kevin O’Connor and the Jazz front office have already shown, teams without championship tradition, sunny beaches, or the financial constitution to take the luxury tax on the chin, can still compete, consistently and seriously. If the Jazz are going to do it, they’re going to have to do it like the Spurs (somewhat lucky), not the Thunder (astoundingly lucky), and thankfully, the recent hiring of Dennis Lindsey shows that they’ve realized this. The Jazz are moving, however slowly, to the kind of team construction that a championship requires, and that’s reason to believe that this is a game Utah can eventually win. But one fact remains clear: the game the Jazz could one day win will never be the same game that teams like the Lakers always seem to win.

Jarrod Rudolph / Deseret News

“Power is of the individual mind, but the mind’s power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is Right.”

–The Great Pike, King of the Fish from The Once and Future King by T.H. White

With six minutes left in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s summer league game against the Pacers, Alec Burks craftily slid behind the Pacers front line, caught the alley-oop entry pass, swung around 180 degrees in the air, and banked a lay-up off the glass. For anyone who spent this last Jazz season watching Alec Burks impose his sheer athletic power almost on command, this lay-up was certainly nothing to write a blog post about, and only debatably worth tweeting about. In fact, it was almost unremarkable. Of course Burks would do that. Of course he would dominate summer league games. Why wouldn’t he score smooth, cool, easy 20 points a game against the likes of Ben Hansbrough. As a rookie, he frequently looked like the most athletic player on the court against legitimate NBA players, much less the washed-out and diluted talent of the summer league, so why wouldn’t he light up the future rosters of the NBDL? He’s Alec Burks, after all.

The tried and true seduction of the summer league has and always will be whether to draw enduring conclusions about players based on their performance. After all, Kevin Durant’s relentless assault on NBA defenses began in the summer league. Shouldn’t greatness be recognizable against whatever the competition? Almost all of the current NBA greats looked the part during their summer league debuts. On the other hand, so did Michael Beasley. On Tuesday, the brash outrage and sharp disappointment that flooded Jazz twitter over Enes Kanter’s underwhelming first summer league game was based around the same sentiment: If Enes Kanter is supposed to be our center of the future (and he better be, because we used a #3 pick on him), how is he performing so poorly against inferior competition? Doesn’t this have to mean something? Who cares if the game is in the summer or in the winter, are we really overreacting if our prized prospect is getting tossed around in the post by Andre Drummond?

And so that same cautionary rationale that talked us all off the ledge on Tuesday afternoon–led by the always reasonable voice of David Locke–should guide us now, right? Sure Burks is playing out of his head right now. Sure he’s putting up 20 points a game on 51% shooting, and making NBA prospects look like bench-warmers on your middle school’s C team, but we know better. We’ve learned to temper our expectations, to modify our perspective, to back away from twitter, to turn off our laptops before we type 1500 words on the Once and Future King of the Jazz’s backcourt. We’ve learned not to overreact, right?

But we’re not overreacting, or at least I’m not. Alec Burks does what he does in summer league games because of the brass, the athleticism, the swagger, the subtle spacial intelligence, and the competitiveness. Sure you can obliterate the competition in the summer league just because the competition is so weak, but not the way Burks is doing it, not with the power of the mind, and certainly not with the great pike’s ‘power of the body.’ Burks entire game is built around confidence, athleticism, and the sense for when to apply those attributes. When Burks failed to perform in the regular season, it was a combination of being misused, underused, or cold shooting. But what we’ve seen in this summer league is Burks’ response to those obstacles. He gets to the line when he’s shooting cold. He manipulates the offense to make absolutely sure he won’t be misused or underused. He gets his shots, in his spots, and he makes most of them. Burks is the poster child for passive-aggressive basketball. Unlike Hayward, who asserts himself and succeeds or doesn’t and fails, Burks succeeds just by knowing when to be aggressive and when to let the game come to him, and in this summer league, with the offense resting solely on his shoulders, he has done just that.

Maybe I have been seduced by the summer league, but I think what’s more likely is that we’re seeing what Burks can do when give the free reign to do it. This is bad, because that means his success will come down to factors he has little control of, and if I want Burks’ success to be controlled by anyone, it’s by Burks. But it’s also good. It’s good because what I’ve learned about Alec Burks this summer has nothing to do with summer league, and everything to do with Alec Burks, and Alec Burks is Might.

Check out ESPN’s rundown here:

Sources:  Marvin Williams off to Utah

This is apparently what it feels like to wonder aloud why your team’s General Manager did nothing through the NBA Draft only to look up a week later and see that 2/5s of the starting lineup has changed.

There is a lot to say about this, but for now, let’s take care of one misconception that has floated around a little bit:  Devin Harris is on the books for one more year at over 8 million dollars, and so is Marvin Williams.  The difference is that Williams has one more year on his contract as a player option at 7.5 million dollars.  It is hard to say whether he will exercise his option or not as it likely depends on how the next season goes.  However, either way, this doesn’t hurt Utah’s cap situation very significantly.  The cap situation after next season was getting so amazingly good that it was almost a bad thing- remember, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement instated a salary floor, meaning that if Utah couldn’t get enough solid free agents next summer (or agree on extensions with current players), they’d have to hand out some bad contracts just to reach the minimum threshold.  So the dream for James Harden lives on!

We’ll have more thoughts soon to come about the trade as well as our untimely farewell to Devin Harris. Until then, we can watch Williams’ highlights in Utah’s quadruple-overtime loss to Atlanta earlier this year with terribly mixed emotions:

Video highlights, as usual, credited to @ProdigyJF

That’s right, we’re live blogging a draft in which the Jazz have no first round draft picks and almost certainly no prospects for changing that. But someone had to record the chilly reception the Jazz Bear’s Harley-powered entrance got from Jazz fans here at ESA. Don’t test us, Bear. We may be here without a first round pick, but we don’t have to be happy about it.

6:13 PM – Evan Hall (@the20thmaine)

We’re seven picks in here, and no one outside of the Washington Wizards war room is happy. The Blazers have just selected Damian Lillard, sending any Jazz fans who were holding out for a trade into the first round for Lillard into a temporary but nonetheless very real depression. Furthermore, the Golden State Warriors have been rewarded for their shameless tankapalooza by nabbing a free-falling Harrison Barnes with the seventh pick (who would, I should note, have perfectly fit many of the Jazz’s offseason needs this year).

6:19  – Jackson Rudd (@ruddsky)

Terrence Ross went 8th to Toronto, the pick that was rightfully Utah’s all along.  Unfortunately, after karma itself died of massive heart failure as Golden State went on to steal back their draft pick through a combination of deceit, ineptitude, and mockery of the game of basketball- which turned into a steal with Harrison Barnes falling- it ended up going to Toronto.  They might have reached on Ross, but at least he’s the best dressed guy in the draft room.  To honor the occasion of our lost chance at lottery glory, the Jazz Bear ran out onto the floor and sprayed everyone with silly string.  Thanks, Bear.

7:03 PM – Evan

We have yet to see a single trade during this draft, the Jazz front office appears to have decided on taking this one laying down, and Jazz fans at the ESA are shooting roughly 15% from the free throw line on the night. Surprisingly, of the three of those recent developments, I’m most disappointed at the third. Two hours ago, I confidently believed that in a head-to-head contest between a random selection of Jazz fans and Andre Drummond (shot 29% from the line in his freshman year) in a free throw shooting contest, the Jazz fans would win. I was wrong. Really, really wrong.

7:23 – Jackson

19 picks in and Perry Jones and Jared Sullinger are still on the board.  This doesn’t make any sense.  Now Denver might do something inexplicable and Boston could land both of those guys with 21 and 22 which might possibly be the most outrageous draft luck I’ve ever seen in my entire life.  The good news is that we are under 30 picks to go until we reach number 47, which is actually strangely exciting to me even though Scott Machado and Kim English will probably be taken by then and all my draft dreams will officially have been shattered.

7:40 – Evan

Point guards are dropping through the draft like rain. Tony Wroten Jr. and Marquis Teague are still on the board on Pick 23. Also, rumors are that the Mavs are shopping one or some of their three picks later in the round. Without a trade, Scott Machado (the consensus choice of Salt City Hoops writers for our #47 pick) could be available, and with a trade, Wroten or even Perry Jones III are on the board. Hope lives at the Energy Solutions Arena.

8:24 – Jackson

We have almost survived the first round even without any signs of life from the Jazz.  Perry Jones fell down to 28, and with every pick he dropped, all Jazz fans wondered if KOC would trade a future first to land him (because he could actually play SF in Utah, which is exactly what he wants and would thrive doing).  Of course, he ended up landing with the Thunder because the Thunder always do the smart thing.  I’m going to emotionally hibernate for the next ten picks for my own self-preservation.  Scott Machado is already number 8 on Jay Bilas’ list of best players available and that is certainly not encouraging.

9:13 – Evan

Kevin O’Connor just walked out and informed us all that the Jazz will be drafting Kevin Murphy from Tennessee Tech. Kevin Murphy is not Scott Machado, so give us a few moments to grieve before we wikipedia Kevin Murphy and scrounge together some analysis.

 9:22 – Evan

Kevin Murphy: Guard, played four years at Tennessee Tech University, shot 42% frm three during his senior season and averaged 21 points, 5 boards, and 2 assists. He isn’t on wikipedia. We struggled to come to terms with this pick, but in case you’re worried about a no-name pick, here’s a YouTube video that might convert you to Kevin Murphy. Or if not convert, at least console you.