Bold Takes Explored Part III: More Opinions On Jazz Teams of the Past

Which Jazz legend propelled the other more? (via NBAE)

The response to my call for bold Jazz takes was so overwhelming that we had no choice but to split them into three installments. On Monday, we tackled the franchise’s biggest what-if moments, and on Tuesday we explored other takes about the modern Jazz and how the team moves forward from here.

Finally today, we’ll get to the remaining bold takes, which also come from the annals of Jazz history. A few people weighed in with interesting opinions on the 1990s glory days, and we also got some from people focused on players and themes from the late-2000s squad that last reached the Conference Finals.

Thanks for sharing all the wild (and mild) theories with us so we could have fun picking them apart while the basketball universe was on hold.

More Takes on the ’90s Jazz

If Karl Malone and John Stockton got to play in the era that Tim Duncan and Tony Parker did, they’d be looked at as the greatest duo of all time.

@caaanelson

I think they already *are* viewed that way, or at least as one of the very best duos ever.

It’s not like the Spurs won by default, either. They earned their first title (in that lockout year) by sweeping the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers and then the Blazers who had just defeated Utah, before winning the Finals in five against the better modern iteration of the Knicks. They beat great teams on the way to their three chips in the 2000s, including stopping the Lakers’ three-peat train, two different series wins against the SSOL Suns, and Finals meeetings with the reigning champion Pistons and later with LeBron James. Their 2014 ring came at the expense of one of the most feared superteams ever constructed.

So no, the Spurs didn’t just waltz into their five banner-hanging parties. The East was undoubtedly weaker during the height of the TD-and-Pop dynasty, but they still had to run a gauntlet just to get out of that side of the bracket.

The Utah/Milwaukee trade in 1992 was a miserable deal for Utah, made worse because it came at an incredibly important time for the franchise coming off their first WCF appearance.

@QuinceSimp

Quince is referring to a deal that sent out Blue Edwards (coming off 12.6 points and 38% shooting from three the season prior) and Erick Murdock (4.1 ppg as a deep bench guard) plus a first-round pick in exchange for Jay Humphries (14.0 points and 6.6 assists) and Larry Krystkowiak (9 points, 5 boards).

Humphries was a consistent playmaker with size to play either guard spot, so the idea here was to back Stockton up with a starter-caliber point guard, but also play the two together. The problem is that Humphries’ efficiency and raw numbers both plummeted after he got to Utah. Utah would eventually undo part of this trade when they traded Humphries to reacquire Edwards in 1995, but the reunion only lasted a few months before the Vancouver Grizzlies stole Edwards away in the expansion draft.

Still, I’m not sure this trade really derailed the Jazz all that much, unless you believe that Blue was poised for some superstar leap in his fourth season. As it turns out, Edwards averaged roughly the same raw numbers over the rest of his career (11-3-2, 46% shooting) as he did during his first three seasons with Utah (10-3-2, 52%). They also traded the declining Thurl Bailey that year for Ty Corbin, but none of that role player shuffling did for the Jazz what their February 1994 trade would ultimately do: give them a defense-bending third star and elevate them to true contender status.

John Crotty (version 2.0) was Stockton’s best backup.

@IrwinMFletcher8

Here are the candidates, starting in the 1987-88 season, when Stock took over the gig from Rickey Green:

• Green himself, who averaged 4.9 points and 3.7 assists as Stockton’s backup that year before departing.
• Jim Les, 1.7 points and 2.6 assists in one season as the primary backup.
• Delaney Rudd, 3.5 points and 2.2 assists over three seasons in the role.
• The aforementioned Humphries, 7.6 points and 3.3 assists in two and a half seasons as a combo guard who saw minutes both behind and next to Stockton.
• Crotty, who overlapped with Humphries but took the job over when the latter was traded, posting 3.7 points and 2.6 assists that season.
• Howard Eisley, who held down the job for five seasons, posting 6.5 points and 3.4 assists, including averaging 10.8 points and 5.8 assists as a starter while the Jazz went 11-7 without Stockton to start the 1997-98 year.
• Jacques Vaughn, 6.1 points and 3.9 assists in the one season he fully owned the role after Eisley left for Dallas.
• Crotty again, who put up 6.9 points and 3.4 assists and dead-eye outside shooting, but only played half that season.
• Mark Jackson (4.7 and 4.6), who lobbied teammates against Stockton and allegedly helped drive him into retirement.

Based on raw contributions alone, I think it’s hard to make the case for anybody but Eisley. Crotty did shoot a remarkable 46% from three over 72 games during his second Jazz stint, though.

One thing we can all agree on: it definitely wasn’t Jackson.

Greg Ostertag was right up there with Mark Eaton, Andrei Kirilenko and Gobert as one of the great defensive Jazz players ever!

@richmurphy1232

Ah, now the takes are getting spicier.

There probably aren’t too many players in between that holy triumvirate and ‘Tag, but the drop-off there is still really steep. Ostertag only had one season (the lockout-shortened ’99 campaign) where he ranked in the top 10 in defensive BPM. I also don’t think Tag was nearly the deterrent that any of those three were. He blocked shots because of the sheer physics involved of being 7-foot-2 and always near the rim, but those three were all more mobile than him and all possessed better understanding of schemes and defensive timing.

But there’s nothing wrong with having a soft spot for the goofy, lovable Tag. Some of my best locker room stories involve the big dude. Some of them also involve multiple expletives or Swedish Fish. How’s that for a teaser?

Stockton > Malone.

@therawns_jazz

This is already really long, even for a three-parter, and this is a topic that deserves a whole other level of exploration. Most quantitative measurements disagree with you, so I guess the question becomes: did Stockton elevate Malone into a player who was able to accomplish what he did quantitatively. For instance, if you replaced Malone with, say, Shawn Kemp, would the latter have had a Mailmanesque career because of his association with Stock? Conversely, if Malone ran with Payton instead, would his career have looked the same?

Personally, I think Stockton made Malone better and Malone made Stockton better. I’m sure that a smart person could make the case that one was more dependent on the other, but like I said, it would require more column inches than I have to devote to it here. Imagine if blogs and Twitter were a thing during those Finals runs! We would have debated this until we couldn’t see straight.

I absolutely love the 1998 Jazz, but if you could time travel the 2020 Jazz to play them, the ’98 team would easily lose.

@KMalphurs

Ooh, that’s a bold take — which is a nice way of saying I think you’re wrong.

The ’98 Jazz were right in the middle of a 6-year period where they won more than 72% of their games. Only three modern teams had a stretch like that and didn’t win at least one title during that span: the ’90s Sonics, the 2001-02 to 2006-07 Mavs¹ and the Jazz. In other words, the team you’re talking about can make a case for being the best team ever to not win a title. As interesting as the current group is, they haven’t yet accomplished anything that comes close to the level of the ’90s Jazz. Obviously Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell and others aren’t done writing their respective stories yet, but as of today, the Finals teams sit head and shoulders above their counterparts from any Jazz era, including the modern version. 

The 2000s Jazz

Kyle Korver (from the DWill teams) was our best wing defender.

@IrwinMFletcher8

On a team that featured Andrei Gennadyevich Kirilenko?! Naaahhhh.

I will say, though, that Korver was and is underrated as a *team* defender, and a lot of people don’t make that distinction. Korver didn’t have the best lateral quickness to hound ball handlers with great individual defense. But he also didn’t make too many scheme mistakes, either. In today’s NBA, with rules that really benefit ball handlers, even the best on-ball defenders are going to get beat on occasion, which makes it all the more important that you’re channeling guys the direction your teammates expect, and otherwise following the game plan so that four other guys know what you’re trying to accomplish. Korver was always pretty good at that.

Also, Gennadyevich is a cool middle name.

Araujo should have gotten all the backup 5 minutes in the WCF and should have had more minutes guarding Duncan.

@IrwinMFletcher8

Hoffa was… not good.

Ben Handlogten (who seems like a good dude) possessed inflammatory information about Kevin O’Connor, securing himself two random and surprising stints on the Utah Jazz.

@Aheffy

In this house we speak no ill of the man the Jazzfanz community used to lovingly call “Hand-Lotion”!

Honestly, Handlogten didn’t look the part of an NBA big man, but if Joe Ingles has taught us anything it’s that looks don’t matter. His rebounding percentages and ability to finish near the rim were both plenty legit, at least for a replacement-level big who only ever played a few dozen NBA games.

But let’s be honest: he earned that second Jazz stint by the way his first one ended: after tearing his ACL on a play, he still hobbled to the hoop to finish the play with a layup before checking out with the season-ending injury. Sloan was a sucker for that type of toughness. Remember, this is the coach who promoted Aleksandar Radojevic — with his whole 61 minutes of NBA experience at that point — to a starting position for the sole reason that he was impressed to see the 7-foot-3 “Rado” dive all the way to hardwood for a loose ball at the end of a blowout loss. I don’t know the exact exchange rate between “7-footer-floor dives” and “finish the play on a busted knee instead of stopping play,” but part of me is surprised Handlogten didn’t get a 7-year extension on the spot.

Kevin O’Connor was an average to below average GM and especially drafter. This culminated in the 2012 draft which is the worst draft of the Utah Jazz’s history.

@clarkpojo

I assume you mean 2011. The Jazz had traded their 2012 pick, so unless you were really mad about Kevin Murphy at No. 55, I’m going to assume you meant choosing Enes Kanter and Alec Burks over a slew of NBA stars-to-be like Kawhi Leonard, Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and more. Although I kind of hate crucifying a GM because somebody he didn’t take outperformed his projection, and prefer instead to look at whether he got expected value for the draft range he was in. Even by that standard, the Jazz didn’t really get lottery-level output from their 2011 picks.

He had other draft misses (Curtis Borchardt, Kirk Snyder, Morris Almond, etc.), but also engineered his way into the top three to get an All-NBA guard, and later selected future All-Stars with the ninth and 47th (twice) picks. C.J. Miles (34th) was a solid NBA contributor for a long time and Wesley Matthews (undrafted) is still producing for a contender, to say nothing of the acquisitions of Mehmet Okur, Carlos Boozer, Matt Harpring, Derrick Favors and more. (Technically we should include Al Jefferson in here, although my own personal KOC-related hot take is that the Jefferson acquisition really hurt Utah long-term, in part because they had to give two decent mid first-rounders that would have helped with the eventual rebuild and in part because integrating Jefferson required a not-subtle shift in philosophies that may have exacerbated the Sloan-DWill tension and hastened the end of an era… But that’s probably its own topic for another time).

Eleven winning seasons out of 13 is a pretty good indication that you know how to assemble a basketball team.

The fairest criticism of KOC, I think, is that he was slow to recognize the opportunity to step into a full rebuild post-DWill. The fact that the Jazz really had one foot in the competitive mindset and one foot in rebuilding for those last couple of KOC seasons made it harder to truly start the reset. That probably cost the 2011-2013 Jazz some valuable opportunities, and might have slowed the development of guys like Hayward and Favors.

Thanks to everybody for playing along!