Jazz Win (as usual) with Enes Kanter

Amidst the current labor stoppage, I have been doing my fair share of thinking/appreciating how nice it’s been to be a Jazz fan. Sure, we’ve never won an NBA championship, but ask yourself this; how many NBA franchises would have been better to cheer for over the last 20 years than the Jazz? Chicago, LA Lakers, San Antonio and probably Dallas for sure. Then you have other teams that have won a championship or two but endured miserable years before or since those championships, such as Boston, Houston, Miami, and Detroit. Value those as you may, but as a fan, a few great seasons every 20 years surrounded by disaster would not keep me as interested as a team that is in playoff contention every single year. Having said that, this last season shows exactly why the Jazz have been competitive for all these years. They are a forward thinking organization with a commitment to their community to stay competitive.

As time goes on, I find it exciting to start adding names to the Deron Williams trade. As it stands, the Jazz traded Williams for Devin Harris, Derrick Favors, and Enes Kanter, with another young stud hopefully just around the corner. Outside of Devin Harris, there remains to be a lot of question marks around the other three pieces. The future draft pick is still a total unknown, your guess on Derrick Favors’ success in the NBA is as good as mine (although for the record, I’m a huge fan), and Enes Kanter hasn’t even played competitively in years, until recently. With the Eurobasket just around the corner, Turkey has played four exhibition games, giving Kanter some burn in each of those four games.

As to be expected, Enes looked very rusty, and in some ways, like a fish out of water on the court. His reaction times were slow and he seemed to be thinking his way through the game rather than just playing. He didn’t have much of a clue how to rotate defensively, he seemed to panic a bit when he had the ball, and appeared to be a step slow at times. But in his most recent game against Germany, Kanter finally showed us what he looks like when he’s comfortable out there and just plays. He was extremely aggressive, a fantastic rebounder, and runs the floor beautifully. You can forget all Mehmet Okur comparisons you may have ever heard and should maybe start thinking more along the lines of a 6’11, more likable version of…Carlos Boozer. The most impressive thing I saw about Kanter, something that I think draws the Boozer comparison, is his ability/desire/motivation (whatever it is) that makes him leave his area to grab rebounds. Jefferson, Okur, and Millsap are all decent rebounders, but none of them would leave their area to go chasing after a rebound like Enes seems to do. So why is this such great news? Well, unless your name is Reggie Evans or Dennis Rodman, a 10 rebound a night guy usually means at least 10 points a night as well, and with the skill set Kanter seems to have, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t make that 15-20 points a night.

You don’t need to remind me that it was just one game, but just for fun, here are some stats from that Turkey vs. Germany matchup to show Enes’ performance relative to a few other guys you may have heard of before.

These stats are adjusted per 40 minutes.

Trading a player as good as Deron Williams hurts but is at the same time the kind of move that exactly illustrates why I could count on one hand how many teams’ fans cheer for a more successful organization than I do. Who knows how good Enes Kanter will ever be, but a strong, physical, excellent rebounding 6’11 center that can shoot the ball out to 20 feet sounds ok to me. Now if only we had a young, freakishly athletic, 6’10 PF to complement the bullying Kanter, I’d be welcome to the idea of the next 20 years being similar to the last 20…