2015 training camp!

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.sltrib.com/sports/3092592...urt?fullpage=1

Quin Snyder wanted to take his team's final preseason tuneup seriously.
"We're going to treat this, as much as we can, like our first regular season game," the Utah Jazz coach said at his team's shootaround Thursday morning.


So an eyebrow or two might have been raised later that night when rookie point guard Raul Neto and second-year shooting guard Rodney Hood were announced as Utah's starting backcourt against the Denver Nuggets, with the more veteran guards Trey Burke and Alec Burks left to come off the bench.


Snyder has said since the beginning of training camp that he might tweak with his team's starting five. And this latest tweak may not be permanent either.

Why would an eyebrow raise?

"We're still trying to figure out how to best utilize our guys," Snyder said after shootaround. "That's been a process."


If Burke and Burks do end up primarily coming off the bench during the regular season, the decision won't have been a demotion based on their preseason play. Burks has averaged 12.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. Burke, meanwhile, has led the Jazz in scoring while shooting 48.2 percent from the field.


"I just think Trey's playing good," Snyder said. "He's been one of our better players throughout the preseason. He's been focused, he's defended."


The Jazz have one of the NBA's youngest rosters and Snyder has said he might look to hide some of that youth in the starting lineup, where more veteran players might help cover up some mistakes.
The move also inserts Hood, who Snyder said "may be playing as well as anybody on our team," into the starting lineup, where his outside shooting could help provide more space for Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert inside.

Burks has played too good to bench. Hood deserves it too but I'm not sure the bench can do much without him leading it.

Coach on a couch


Mike Malone had a little extra free time last spring.


"At that time I had a lot of time to watch games because I was fired," said the new Denver Nuggets coach, who was bounced from Sacramento last season. And Malone found himself enjoying watching the Utah Jazz.


"I thought they played harder than a lot of people," he said. "People talk about passing and ball handling. Playing hard is a skill. I think this team has taken on Quin's personality of hard work, demanding toughness. I wasn't really surprised, and it was great to see."



One Singler day


E.J. Singler, we never knew ye. A day after the Jazz signed the the 6-foot-6 Oregon product, the Jazz waived him. Singler's deal was procedural to give the Jazz his D-League rights. Singler, the younger brother of Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kyle Singler, spent last season playing in Estonia, where he averaged 6.9 points and 3.9 rebounds per game.



afalk@sltrib.com


Twitter: @tribjazz

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.sltrib.com/sports/3090657...azz?fullpage=1

[QUOTE]He's going to slap them hard with the message and they're going to buy in

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...n-rolling.html

[QUOTE]The start of the NBA's 2015-16 regular season is less than a week away. And following training camp and seven preseason games, nobody's more eager or anxious to get things going

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...on-finale.html

If the regular season plays out like this one did, Jazz fans should be excited for the next six-plus months.

Excited that they beat up on one of the worst teams in the league?



[QUOTE]After scoring the first 14 points, the Jazz finished the exhibition season with a lopsided 98-78 victory over an undermanned Denver Nuggets team at EnergySolutions Arena.

[Xiao Yao You]

If it was up to me Burks and Ingles start. I'd look to pull Ingles or Favors early and go with Hood. Their top 5 guys need to play together as much as possible. Ideally they'll start together eventually but I'm not sure the bench could stay in games without him right now.

Booker would be next off the bench. After that I'd probably look to go back to Ingles or Favors. Their 7 semi-proven guys need to play as much as possible.

Withey is the next big off the bench. Might be able to get away with not playing him every game especially when you pull Favors early. Pleiss or Lyles could get the call for certain match-ups.

Neto probably should be in the mix as long as he keeps hitting shots. Might be a good starter eventually. I wouldn't put too much on him yet. Johnson is probably my next guy. He's solid.

Millsap when you need a stopper or energy.

Burke if no one else is hitting anything.

I'd feel ok about that. Trey starting or in the rotation pisses me off though!

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.sltrib.com/sports/3095143...r-season-nears

That means the Jazz are sneaking up on absolutely nobody, something that's been apparent during the preseason.

Don't think the pre-season has shown much other than it's not the regular season and the Jazz have a lot to prove still.

As the opener approaches on Wednesday night in Detroit, the Jazz know they have to deal with this. Teams are coming into games more prepared. They are scouting the Jazz better and they are adjusting to what Utah normally likes to do on both ends.

The scouting report is out. Guard the few guys that can hurt you and let the others shoot all night long.

Because of this, the onus is on the Jazz to play well consistently to start the season. Wins in November won't be as forthcoming as they were in March and April.


"We've learned that stuff isn't going to come easy for us this year," Jazz power forward Derrick Favors said. "Last year we were able to creep up on people and surprise come people. Now, I think people are going to be ready for us and they are going to know what to expect. So we have to be prepared for that, and we have to be focused at every step."


So how did the preseason go for Utah?


Up and down is probably the most accurate description. At their best , the Jazz have been impressive on both ends of the floor. Against the Portland Trail Blazers last Sunday, they showed hints of how explosive the offense can be with spacing and ball movement.


Defensively, the Jazz haven't yet sustained the pace they exhibited late last season, but a significant portion of that can be attributed to coach Quin Snyder experimenting with different lineups. Still, there have been spurts where the defense has created issues for the opposition, forced turnovers and converted those turnovers into easy buckets on the other end.


The Jazz know they have to be precise in order to reach their ultimate goal of making the postseason. They know that the Western Conference is quite unforgiving, which means they don't have the luxury of taking a night off.
"Obviously, we want to get into the playoffs," point guard Trey Burke said. "But we know that takes sacrifice, a lot of work and concentration. We know that we can't do some of the things that we did last year, like go on a nine game losing streak. A lot of that began with how we started games and we can't let that happen this year."

Most of it was because of you.

Slow starts are still a concern for the Jazz. Offensive spacing, too. Take Tuesday night's loss to to Oklahoma City, for example. Utah came out slow on both ends, failed to adequately defend Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant and soon the Jazz were looking at the business end of a 20 point deficit. Utah came back and made a game of it in the fourth quarter, but by that time it was too late. The hill to climb was too steep.


This happened too often last seaspm, especially in November and December.

Different team than what they have now though.
[QUOTE] And it can't happen, if the Jazz want to make the postseason. Preseason concerns also include struggles from Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, as well as times where the offense grinds to a halt.

But a solid win over the Denver Nuggets in Thursday's preseason finale should east some of that angst. Gobert

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.sltrib.com/sports/3094616...ive?fullpage=1

I think it could go either way and we'll be pretty good."

Pretty good shouldn't be enough after last season's finish.
[QUOTE]Point Gobert


Gobert added to his highlight reel on Thursday by finishing a couple of alley-oops. But the 7-footer's best moment of the night might have come when he stole the ball at mid court and drove to the basket, finishing off the play with a Eurostep and layup.


"That was impressive," Neto said. "A guy with his size just doing that, that play

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...ines-Jazz.html

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.slcdunk.com/research-stat...they-bench-mob

We're going to assume that Dante Exum, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, and Rudy Gobert would be four of the five starters. The other one would end up being one of: Trey Burke (moving Dante to 2 guard),

Trey would be the 2.

Dante would have averaged AT LEAST 26 MPG this year. (He averaged 22.2 mpg last season in 82 games of action.)

Neto may have changed things. Like Dante he defends. Unlike Dante he has an offensive game too.

So Raul and Trey will eat up at least 45 minutes at point guard each game

Let's hope not. They haven't in the pre-season.

(Smarter people have convinced me that Hood's shooting ability and passivity is better served as a 3rd / 4th / 5th option with the starting unit.)

Burks should start. Hood off the bench.

Fewer if Gordon or Joe steal some "running four" minutes when teams go small.

It certainly looks as if they will go small. Only a few minutes a night for Withey.

Booker is in a contract year and for his career has always hovered around 20 mpg. That means there's 16 left for Lyles, Withey, Pleiss (and Hayward / Ingles).


It doesn't appear like there is just enough mob time, even if our roster looks like they have the talent to support one.

Spurs-ian influence:

Of course, there will be if the starters have their minutes reduced. That, coupled with the Spurs penchant for staggering the play of their best players for minimum overlap, could make a mob happen. Previous eras of Jazz basketball were cursed with a huge talent disparity from the starters to the bench. When the starters were in they were unstoppable, when the bench was in you were constantly worried.

Sounds like this year! After the first 7 I'm worried!

Of course, everything was upside down in the Tyrone Corbin era where the team was usually behind after one quarter because the starters were outclassed by the opponent, only for the C4 bench guys to claw the team back into the game.

They had depth. Something they are lacking now.

If Snyder wants to limit strain on his guys, and throw away the player's individual aspirations for big minutes and big numbers, then he'll manage the minutes wisely. After all, last season 13 different players averaged at least 10.0 mpg, and 9 played at least 20 mpg (Booker was at 19.8 mpg, and Millsap at 19.7 mpg). It would be silly to expect Snyder to somehow become miserly with the minutes when his offense relies on using the talented players GM Dennis Lindsey has given him to use.


Still, it's impossible to go 14 deep (max active is 13). And I think Snyder is going to recognize his best players need to play more than Gregg Popovich does. I don't think you will see six wing players play in the same game on the regular.

Probably not but you could if the pg play sucks.

Nor will you see all the bigmen get a chance every night. If a mob is going to happen it will have to be an effective group in a short stint.
Is last year an indication?

Going back to the data from Seth's original post, the Jazz played at least three starters about 65% of the time last season. That means that the bench-as-a-majority units were only on the floor 35% of the time. Over a game that's still 16.92 mpg. And over a season that's 1,387 minutes. I don't think that the Jazz will have so many trial-and-error players this year, if everyone remains largely healthy. But I do think we'll see some fluidity to the starting lineup as the PG and SG spots are far from set in stone.


I do not put a lot of stock into who played last year, as an indication of who will play this year -- save for Hayward, Favors, and Gobert.
But with this increased fluidity you will get a better chance to mix and match units that work. Eventually you will find something that DOES work when the unit construction is "player+player+player+starter+starter". But is that a mob?

S.W.A.R.M.

Back in the day of hockey subs we had S.W.A.R.M. And S.W.A.R.M. was awesome. The S.W.A.R.M. units were a collection of misfits like Earl Watson and Ronnie Price at the same time, while backing them up with very fundamentally simple bigmen. The one we all seemed to gravitate to was the #15 most used unit from the 2010-2011 Jazz season. That bench mob was Earl, Ronnie, along with C.J. Miles, Francisco Elson, and Kyrylo Fesenko. And that unit was an overall +20 in +/- over the season, and absolutely did it with defense.

Looks like shit on paper!

The thing about S.W.A.R.M. besides being a unit of no starters was that they had an identity. They also had a unified purpose. They came in for short stints, they played very hard, and they really disrupted the other team. And by doing what they did, they also captured our hearts.
National observers didn't give a damn because that team wasn't flashy and was pitiful on offense. Bench mobs, as we know them, comprise a bunch of guys who can come off the bench, hustle a little bit, but also score. In that regard a bench mob of Burke, Burks, Ingles, Booker, and Withey may actually be what most people consider a bench mob. But I do not know if they will have the unity of purpose, or cohesion, of the S.W.A.R.M.
N.B. The S.W.A.R.M. bench units were not that singular one listed, but sometimes included Andrei Kirilenko off the bench, and that's kind of unfair as he is one of the five most talented all-around players in franchise history.

So... bench mob?

I think the Jazz have the quality of players who can be effective at digging a team out of a jam. Elijah could be a bench mob HOFer with his defensive grit, ability to drive and get to the line, and occasional three point ability. Joe is a classic bench mob guy, like a likable Jon Barry who plays defense. Alec has spent his entire career getting Corb'd for both minutes and role with the team, I'm not keen on him coming off the bench. But if Manu Ginobili can do it for most of his career, and this is a Spurs-like system, then it is easier to swallow. Those three guys in some wing rotation are a strong foundation.

Millsap sucks at one end. Ideally he's on the bench unless you really need him.

Booker, Withey, Lyles, and Pleiss are goofy enough to carry the Francisco/Fesenko torch. Also, they appear to be able to also play basketball. So that's a plus.


But the most visible engine for any bench mob is their point guard. If it's going to be Trey Burke trying to earn the right to start, it'll be tough. If it's Trey Burke being the best back-up point guard in the league, it'll work out.

Which do you think you'll see?

If it's Raul Neto doing his thing, setting guys up, making other players better, that's also awesome. I'm not biased about this. Both guys could be great or awful off the bench. We've seen them both succeed and fail this preseason.

Can't see Neto being awful. He can play. Trey can take shots. Big difference.

But for all the chemistry issues, and court production, the bottom line is that a mob has to have an attitude. I don't know if our team as a whole has one. But the bench guys should, at the very least. They could just be a handful of disjointed almost-starters, or they can work together to become something the other team has to worry about.


In that egalitarian Spurs system we've seen egos take a back seat to butt kicking. A huge part of that has been their trust and use of their bench players. This is a new Jazz era with an evolving system and the potential to have a strong bench.

It's looked pretty bad. If they do things like I envision they might be able to get by with it. Strong I just don't see right now.

While the trend is to move away from full-on bench units, you know it will be fun in game threads to "Release the B.L.I.M.P.!" (Burks / Lyles / Ingles / Millsap / Pleiss)

Okay, we can work on the name of the potential mob as the season progresses. But man, this is just going to be another fun thing to watch for over the next 82 games.

Burke isn't fun!

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...on-finale.html

[Xiao Yao You]

[QUOTE]Shams Charania: The Utah Jazz have claimed Portland free agent guard Phil Pressey off waivers, league source tells Yahoo Sports.

[Xiao Yao You]

https://jazzfanatical.wordpress.com/...1019-and-1023/

[QUOTE]Tom Thibodeau had a great quote for all of our coaches and players last week when he was in:

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...zz-player.html

[QUOTE] Utah went from the worst defensive team in the league to the best in a Snyder-led transformation that pushed the franchise

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...o-success.html

Gordon Hayward and Derrick Favors are the undisputed leaders of this Utah Jazz team.

Sure looked like Rudy to me.
[QUOTE]Both entering their sixth NBA seasons, the 6-foot-8 Hayward is generally regarded as Utah's best all-around player with his ability to fill up the stat sheet with points, rebounds and assists, while the 6-10 Favors is arguably Utah's most consistent performer with his steady scoring, rebounding and defensive prowess. Both of these guys definitely know how to play, and play well, on both ends of the court.


And yet, while some folks figure that the Jazz will only go as far as Hayward and Favors carry them, it's their supporting cast that may very well determine just how successful this youthful franchise will be in the 2015-16 season and future seasons to come.


That cast includes 7-1 center Rudy Gobert, 6-1 point guards Trey Burke and Raul Neto, shooting guards Alec Burks and Rodney Hood, swingman Elijah Millsap, and role players like forwards Trevor Booker, Joe Ingles and Trey Lyles, and backup centers Jeff Withey and Tibor Pleiss.


Those are the guys who, when they're on the court, must each raise the level of their game if the Jazz hope to gain ground on the rest of the teams in the deep Western Conference and emerge as a playoff contender.
Gobert, a dominating defensive specialist, has looked somewhat sluggish during the preseason, adversely affected by his time spent with the French National Team. But in Thursday night's preseason finale, a 20-point victory over the Denver Nuggets, the big fella finally busted out with a 14-point, 10-rebound performance that bodes well for the Jazz moving forward.


"I tried to set the tone defensively right from the beginning and make sure I help my teammates and make sure we play physical," Gobert said. "... No matter who plays, we have to have the same intensity and communication, and we had it tonight. Now we have to have it for the next 82 games.

[Xiao Yao You]

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...Jazz-team.html

[QUOTE]They still seem like youngsters and they are both still fairly young by NBA standards. Gordon Hayward is 25 years old and Derrick Favors is 24 in a league where the average age has fluctuated between 26.1 and 27.5 since the start of the league in 1946.

However, though it